What You've Given Me
by Kittenshift17
Summary: Five years after the war Draco Malfoy is stopped in his tracks when he catches sight of a small boy who could be a double of himself as a child. His heart stops when the boy and his twin sister run up to a girl he hasn't seen since the war & would've preferred never to see again & call her Mummy. His past is back to haunt him and it's name is Hermione Granger & her children.
1. Chapter 1

**What You've Given Me**

**Chapter 1**

_We are all strangers to our hidden potential until we confront problems that reveal our capabilities- Apoorve Dubey._

Draco Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the little girl. He didn't know why. He'd never seen her before, and yet… there was something about her features that seemed familiar. He was standing in _Flousirh and Blotts_, trying to find a copy of the latest Potions guide and had been absorbed in scouring the shelves.

The little girl that had caught his attention had long white-blonde hair that hung in loose ringlets all the way down her back. She was only young, couldn't be more than five years old, but something about her seemed familiar. He was still staring at her, pondering what it was about her that had caught his eye, when something-or more accurately, someone- ran up beside her, waving a book under the girl's nose.

That something stopped his heart.

It was a little boy.

The pair were identical in height and like the girl, the boy's hair was a glowingly bright shade of white-blonde. He had pointed features that were so familiar to Draco that he could've been looking at some mind-projection of himself as a small child.

While he stared at them -completely absorbed in the pair of children that could only be twins to look so alike- they were oblivious to him. They chattered to each other, though he had no idea what they were saying, before they both scampered off through the crowded shelves of the book shop, leaving him wondering what in Merlin's name he had just seen.

That little boy looked so much like him that Draco felt a fleeting sense of fear thinking that such an image could be the cause of one of two things; either he had some kind of illegitimate children he was unaware of fathering, or he was suffering some kind of mental issue that was making him have premonitions of such a thing. A large part of him wanted to follow the children to get a better look at them or their mother, but he could just imagine the scene it would cause to have an ex-Death Eater following children through a book shop. Then again, if he had unknowingly sired children he had a right to know about them and there was no other way a little boy could look so much like he had done as a lad.

Completely forgetting about the book that was now dangling limply in his grip, Draco Malfoy strode through the large book shop, following the excited childish chatter he could hear. As he rounded the end of a shelf, heading for the sounds the pair were making in the next aisle he felt the air whoosh out of his lungs as though he'd just been hit with the most powerful Killing curse in the world.

Standing in the aisle, seemingly oblivious to the pair of blonde haired children playing ring-around-the-rosy around her legs was a girl that he had hoped he would never have to see again for as long as he lived.

Her curly chestnut hair was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, and she wore figure hugging jeans with a cream sweater, a heavy green jacket that hung open and black boots that seemed to caress her calves. She was absorbed in a book in the same pose he had just witnessed on the little girl he'd noticed, staring intently at the back cover as though weighing whether or not the book was worth buying.

The children bounced around her, trying to get her attention, waving the books they had found beneath her nose, obviously hoping they would be allowed to purchase them. Draco couldn't believe his eyes as he stared at her. Slowly the girl tore her gaze from her book and smiled at the children.

"Of course we'll get them for you. That's what we came here for in the first place my little cherubs" She smiled at the twins indulgently even as they bounced up and down gleefully.

"Thank you Mummy!" The little boy who looked so much like Draco crowed happily and Draco Malfoy felt his blood run cold even as he shrank back into a shadowy part of the store where he could still watch them but could not be caught doing so.

How could this be happening?

No one had seen or heard a peep from her since the summer after the war had ended. The last he had heard even her friends were unsure where she was and he remembered there being something in the papers a few years ago with a giant MISSING headline over her familiar face. But after a while the stories about her had faded off the headlines as well and Draco hadn't thought about her existence at all in the past almost five years.

Yet as he stared through the shadows watching the way the little boy that looked like him and the little girl who looked a little like him and a lot like her, each clutched books to their chests with one arm and took one of her hands each with the other, Draco felt a horrible sense of foreboding settle in his stomach and a terrible fist of guilt and remorse clench his insides in an iron grip.

She was completely unaware of his presence in the shop as she led the children that had to be hers since they were both calling her mummy, up to the counter and paid for their items before exiting the shop, the twins begging for ice-cream.

Draco almost walked out without paying for the book he still clutched limply, and by the time he had taken care of it, the young woman and the two angel-haired children were lost in the sea of wizards and witches hurrying through Diagon Alley. How could it be so? Not a peep from her in years and yet here she was showing up with two children swinging off her, suddenly dancing back into his life when he had thought never to see her again.

He'd never truly forgiven himself for what he had done to her all those years ago when she had been brought to his house and his Aunt had been desperately trying to torture information out of her with such a powerful Cruciatus curse that the girl had gouged her fingernails into the marble floors of his family dining room. Draco still had nightmares about the fear and hatred in her eyes when he'd offered Aunt Bella an alternative way to elicit information from a girl who would not yield to pain but might surrender to try and maintain her innocence.

He had never forgotten the way that single tear had slipped out the corner of her right eye and trickled down her cheek when he'd taken her innocence away. Or the way she hadn't uttered a single sound or spoken a word about it to anyone. Draco often wondered why she had never told her friends what he had done to her and the guilt over what he had done to a girl who was even more a victim than he had been in the ravages of a war, ate away at him like some toxic disease. During the past five years he had managed to drown out most of his memories of the war but as he trailed through the crowded street trying to catch another glimpse of her and her two children, Draco knew that no matter how much he drank he'd never be able to forget the fear and pain in her eyes and never erase the memory of that single tear running down her soft cheek.

When he returned to his home in London, the one he had bought after selling off the Manor as being nothing more than an uncomfortable reminder of the horror he had seen and the scene of his disgrace, Draco poured himself a generous glass of whiskey and tried to forget. But no matter how much he guzzled, he couldn't erase the memory of those familiar looking children and that haunting young woman from his tormented mind and bitterly broken soul.

That night Draco Malfoy was haunted in dream of angel-haired children cheering and dancing in circles around the laughing face of Hermione Granger.

* * *

**A/N: Another new story for y'all. It's already posted on HPFF so I figured I might as well upload it here too. Hope you like it.**

**Please feed the hungry writer a Review.**

**xx-Kitten =)**


	2. Chapter 2

**What You've Given Me**

**Chapter 2**

_If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals- J.K. Rowling_

When he woke the following morning Draco felt like he'd died and gone to hell. He had a splitting headache and a nasty hangover from all the alcohol he'd consumed trying to forget Granger's face. His sleep had been plagued by nightmares and he groaned as he rolled out of bed, cursing his alarm clock so foully that the poor thing blew up. Hissing at the noise and the way the acrid scent of smoke made him gag even more than his reflection did, Draco quickly repaired the stupid thing and stumbled towards his shower.

The hot water revived him a little but the idea of going in to work made him want to scratch his own eyes out with a blunt spoon.

Why did this have to happen to him?

All night he'd been plagued by her fearful brown eyes and that tear he'd never forgotten, and every time he woke he'd fall right back into slumber filled with the nigglingly familiar faces of Granger's children with their white blonde hair that was identical to the hair that grew on his own head. He had an awful feeling that those children would be a little under five years old and he suspected he knew who might have fathered them.

He wasn't ok with it.

But surely they couldn't be his children, could they? Surely if Granger had wound up pregnant after what he had done to her, what he had taken away from her and the pain he had caused her; surely after all that she wouldn't keep the results and ultimate reminder of what he had done to her. Would she?

Surely Hermione Granger would be smart enough not to keep the illegitimately conceived children of Draco Malfoy, her school tormentor and the bastard who'd done such a horrible thing to her. Surely she wouldn't have thrown away her life at eighteen to raise her enemy's children?

Draco scrubbed his hands roughly over his face, grimacing when the faces of those children flashed behind his eyes, looking far too much like him for his comfort and he felt a strange burning in his chest.

He had to put this to rest. He needed to know if they were his, and if he really had unknowingly been a father for the past five years…. Well Draco didn't exactly what he was going to do about it, but he had to know.

Shaking himself physically and mentally, he headed for the door. He had a little time before he had to be at work. His pub didn't officially open until ten, but he had a manager to take care of that kind of thing for him anyway. He'd just stop by later and oversee everything. Make sure the lunch rush was running smooth and that his patrons were happy. He found himself smiling a little as he thought about the pub he owned. It was mostly open to wizards, but to maximise the potential of the place, he'd thrown the doors open to the muggle public and had managed to sweet talk the Ministry to let him open it up as a second entryway into Diagon Alley.

All in all, his pub was doing even better business than the Leaky Cauldron some days, simply because it was still relatively new and different. He'd taken care for the first two years of his ownership, he'd kept himself scarce, trying to maximise his customer intake, without tainting folks against the place because it was affiliated with someone like him. But eventually they'd begun to attract regulars and with time people from the wizarding world had gotten to know him a little and begun to slowly forget his less than admirable role in the war.

Thinking of the cosy feel of _The Drunken Mermaid_ made Draco smile just a little for the first time all morning. He was particularly proud of his pub, though sometimes he felt like it was the only thing in his life to be proud of. They served a mixture of wizarding and muggle foods, all thrown in together and Draco had made sure to have some of everyone's favourites available to please even the fussiest home-fed wizards. Drinks too, were a combination of both ranging from the familiar wizarding drinks like Butter beer and firewhiskey all the way to some strange muggle cocktails like Sex on the Beach, and the Little Green Monster.

The interior was almost entirely wooden, a deep shade of glowing chestnut that until this morning had not once made him think of Granger's hair. The furniture was made from the same rich shaded wood, compliment by shades of emerald and ruby velvet booths and squashy cushioned bar stools. It saddened him a little to think that the pub he bought and fixed up was more of a home to him than anywhere else ever had been.

Thinking he'd like nothing more than to go down there and have his head chef, Susie- a squib woman who made the most exquisite pancakes in all of Britain- make him some maple glazed bacon and strawberry toped pancakes, Draco sighed and thought instead about how he might find out any information about Granger and the children he may have fathered with the muggle-born. If he were anyone else, he could just start asking around about her and no one would think anything of it.

But she'd been gone for the past five years and it was well known within the wizarding world that there would probably always be bad blood between Draco Malfoy and two thirds of the Golden Trio. Potter might have forgiven him for the things he had done, or at least chosen to look past them, but Potter didn't know that Draco had roughly carried Granger away from his aunt and stripped her of first her clothes and then her innocence. Weasley would never look past the prejudice that existed between old pure-blood families like theirs but Draco didn't give a hoot about Weasley.

What he wanted to do was find out where Granger was living, when she had come back and who those kids belonged to.

But it wasn't as though he could just waltz into the Ministry archives and find the information without rousing suspicion, and he couldn't start asking around either. He supposed he could owl her a letter and ask if they were his but Draco had a feeling that the proud, bushy-haired girl he'd attended Hogwarts with would be less than pleased to receive mail from him, especially about such a sensitive topic.

"Migsy?" Draco questioned sharply, watching as the house elf ran into the room. Draco had no doubt he'd been hovering somewhere waiting for Draco to call on him. Migsy was always ready to force potions and things on him if it might make him feel better in some way and he didn't like to believe Draco when he told the elf that there was no cure for self-loathing.

"Yes Master Draco?" the elf squeaked excitedly, thrilled to be called upon.

"I need your help Migsy… There is a woman, a witch, named Hermione Granger, do you know of her?"

"Oh yes sir. Dobby used to speak highly of a Miss Hermione" Migsy told him.

"She's been away Migsy, but I saw her yesterday. I haven't seen her since the war before then… you remember what I did to her?" Draco asked the elf, who suddenly looked wary.

"Migsy remembers sir" the elf muttered, clearly uncomfortable.

"She had two kids with her when I saw her yesterday Migsy… and they both looked like me. I need you to find any and all information you can on her since she left after the war please? Where she's been, who she saw, what she did, who the father of her children is if you can. Don't approach her directly, or she'll become angry and I don't want to remind her of what I did to her if this is all just some misunderstanding. Try to find me an address for where she is living if you can, please Migsy."

"Migsy will do it sir" the elf promised solemnly.

"Thank you…" Draco murmured "And Migsy? Make sure you dress warmly. It's getting chilly out of late."

Migsy looked uncomfortable to be spoken to so politely by a man who had been raised to be cruel. When Draco nodded the elf disappeared with a sharp crack. Leaving him alone, hung-over, feeling wretched and with a burning desire to know whether or not he was a father.

When she had covered the last remaining sliver of glass with dark paper that would hide what she was about to do from the outside world, Hermione Granger slowly pulled out her wand. Taking a deep breath in through her nose and holding it for several long moments, Hermione let her eyes slide closed and drew the image into her mind of what she wanted to happen here.

She had fled England after the war in search of her parents and in search of some semblance of strength when so much had been taken from her. Almost five years had passed since she had left and Hermione had learned so many things in that time. Many of them were unpleasant, but many more were lessons that she would cherish for the length of her life and were knowledge she would pass on to her two beautiful children. For a little while Hermione had let the fierce north wind carry her along, blowing her from place to place until she had grown too heavy with child to travel in safety.

But she had finally returned to London and in London she would stay. It had taken her a long time to let go of her past, and even longer to find the strength and courage that it would to take to face her friends and the rest of the British wizarding community, but she was here now.

Hermione slowly waved her wand, her eyes still closed as she projected the images of what she wanted through transfiguration and conjuration in order to create a new life for herself. It took a long time, but Hermione made sure to keep her newest dream firmly in mind as she magically transformed to hollowed out shell of an old hardware store into a new and exciting place where she would live, work and raise her two beautiful children in love, peace and safety.

When she opened her eyes again, Hermione sighed happily.

It had taken her a long time to decide on a career path that would allow her to support herself and her family, and even longer to learn the magic behind her chosen career. She had wanted something that would allow her to keep her kids with her every day, and though it was a sacrifice to give up on her dream of working with the Ministry to improve the way wizards treated all other magical creatures and beings, it was one she had made willingly.

The little store had been transformed completely.

After a long deliberation, Hermione Granger had decided she wanted to spend her life doing things to improve the lives of others. And she wanted to do it in a way that allowed her to still spend every day with her children, teaching them about life and watching them grow. She had thought long and hard about the things in her life that made a difference and she had been surprised by what she had come up with.

During the stress of the war and the grief in the aftermath of that time, not to mention the incredible confliction she had felt when she had discovered she was pregnant with the children of the boy who had tormented and bullied her through school and then stripped her innocence away, Hermione had relied on two things to get her through.

They were tea and books. She had experimented with all kinds of variances and herbal remedies and learned many things, so much so that she was now able to just touch a person or look into their eyes and know what combination of herbs and plants, spices and flavours would best suit them and improve their lives. She intended to put it to use here and though the store she had purchased was on a somewhat quiet street, it was around the corner from a busy shopping street in muggle London and backed onto what had once been Knockturn Alley.

With almost all of the shady wizards now locked in Azkaban thanks to the Ministry Aurors, Knockturn Alley had been going out of business in a bad way until someone suggested that perhaps it could be cleaned up and used as an extension of Diagon Alley. The name of the street hadn't changed, but when Hermione had wandered down there she had been instantly aware of the way the atmosphere had. It was no longer dark, creepy and dank. No longer a place where shady characters lingered. Now it was vibrant and well lit by brightly coloured lanterns strung between the buildings and welcoming store fronts. Hermione had managed to secure one and convinced the Ministry of magic that with the right kind of magic she would be able to ensure that she could serve both the muggle and magical populations without them meeting.

With a tricky bit of magic Hermione had made it appear to muggle London as though her shop was small and quaint, with a few little tables, and long bar like serving bench and shelves of books lining the walls. Throughout the 'kitchen' area of the store were shelves upon shelves of herbs and spices and wonderfully wacky things to put in drinks for any mood, ailment or issue. The shop was identical on the other side of the middle kitchen area, leading to the magical community off Knockturn Alley, but both were walled off from the other and warded to keep the worlds separate. The Minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt had himself forbidden Hermione from being allowed to have an access point between the magical and muggle worlds since there were already two leading into Diagon Alley. One through the Leaky Cauldron as there had always been, and one through a new pub that had gone into business after Hermione had left called the Drunken Mermaid.

She had picked soothing colours for her store, the bench tops a soft shade of lavender, the shelves a pale sky blue. The visible walls were a shade of rich cream, splashes of colour bringing it to life with images of flowers hanging on canvas paintings. The floors, Hermione decided after some deliberation, were black carpet since the carpet would soak up spills and would keep folks from slipping when they rushed in out of the rain with wet feet. Each room had a cosy fireplace that immediately crackled to life, making Hermione smile as the rooms warmed considerably.

Relying heavily on her magical ability, Hermione did some more fancy magic to unpack the many canisters and containers she had purchased before she filled them all with the herbs and ingredients she would use in her beverage making. Books floated onto the book shelves, muggle books within the muggle half of her store and magical texts mixed in with some muggle books in the magical half of her new shop. Outside each store, in the dead of night, Hermione conjured up some brightly coloured rainbow lantern lights to draw the eye and invite people in, and she elegantly splashed the name of her store on the windows and the shopfront.

_**Hermione's**_

The gold paint of the name matched the signature on every one of her take-away cups and Hermione sighed as she set to work. She was nervous now about opening in the morning. She had already put the kids to bed for the night before coming down and getting to work on the store while they were asleep, and she was excited to show them both in the morning, knowing they would be excited about the new store and the interaction they would have between the muggle and magical world.

Locking up for the night and bringing up all of her wards to keep anyone from being able to break into her store, Hermione climbed the stairs to the little three bedroom flat above her shop, sighing as she looked around. She was completely settled in now that the store was ready. She'd been fretting for weeks –months if she thought about the stress before moving home a month ago- about the effect it would have on their lives and whether or not they were ready to face the world here again. She'd managed to avoid almost all questions about the father of her children and had yet to confide in even Harry, Ron or Ginny about what had happened to her that she had come to have two beautiful children with hair that was such a vibrant shade of white-blonde it hurt to look at them in certain lights.

Hermione let herself silently into the room they had insisted they be allowed to share. She'd made sure to get a place with three bedrooms so that when they grew older they would be able to split their rooms, but at four years and two months old, her babies weren't ready for that just yet. She smiled fondly when she saw them by the soft yellow glow of their night-light. They were snuggled up together in the same bed, even though they had separate ones, and she was unsurprised to see that they had fallen asleep facing each other, no doubt after having discussed something.

She laughed softly when she walked closer and found a Dr. Seuss book open on the pillow between them and realised they had probably been reading to each other. They loved to read and she was pleased that she had instilled such an important skill in them at such an early age.

Her heart squeezed as she looked at the pair and she wondered how she had ever lived without them. They were her whole world and Hermione knew she would do anything, commit any crime, sacrifice anything she had to, to keep them safe and happy, to make sure they knew how much she loved them. She hadn't realised until she'd had them how much a mother could love her children. Hadn't known the true meaning of loving someone. And by some miracle she'd gotten two someone's to love forever. Two perfect angles.

"I love you both so much" Hermione whispered to her sleeping son and daughter.


	3. Chapter 3

**What You've Given Me**

**Chapter 3**

Draco still hadn't heard from Migsy by eleven in the morning the following day and he was aware of the effect not knowing was having on him. He glared at his reflection as he was about to leave his flat. He hadn't looked this bad since the war. He had dark circles under his eyes that looked like bruises against his pale skin from the lack of sleep and the nights he had spent plagued by nightmares.

Draco wondered what kind of psychological significance there was in having nightmares where you were the villain. Because in every single nightmare that had plagued him, he'd been reliving the horrors he had committed during the war and before it. Reliving his foulness amid a life where he hadn't really known any better to begin with, and by the time he'd worked it all out, he was stuck in a life where there was no way out for him.

His father was rotting away in Azkaban with all the other Death Eaters, and Draco shuddered to think of him in such a place, having experienced first-hand how awful that place was when he had served a year there for his crimes against the wizarding world. His mother had been excused of her crimes as being a victim of circumstance and because she had lied to the Dark Lord to save Harry Potter. Driven mad in her loneliness at her husband and son being locked up, and her only remaining blood relatives all dead or in Azkaban as well, she had done what very few magical folk were capable of and ended her pain and suffering with a Killing curse to her own heart.

He often had nightmares that it was his fault his mother had killed herself because if he had resisted his father's teachings he wouldn't have been locked away and could have stayed with her. But the past two nights Draco had been reliving every excruciatingly painful memory he had of the girl he had taken by force after she had been repeatedly tortured. He had been trying in vain to think of some way he could ever rectify the situation with her since he was almost positive just from the glance he'd gotten at her children that they were his. No other could sire a child that looked identical to him. On some subconscious level Draco knew they were his children, and yet he was driving himself mad with the need to know the truth.

Scrubbing his hands through his floppy blonde hair, Draco apparated himself to his pub, striding grumpily into the kitchen hoping for something to make him feel better.

"Boss you look like hell" his bar manager told him when he caught sight of him.

"Thanks Travis" Draco growled at him, earning a laugh from the ever-cheery and easy-going bar manager.

"Anytime Boss" Travis laughed "I'm always happy to tell you when you look like shit."

Draco grumbled under his breath as he looked for Suzie, his head chef, hoping she might make him pancakes. Just as he was about to go searching for her, a sharp crack sounded and Draco nearly jumped a foot in the air to have Migsy appear so close in front of him that he actually tripped over the elf.

"Sorry master" Migsy apologised profusely "Migsy has news sir. Urgent news!"

"Well out with it" Draco hissed when the elf kept apologising while Draco got back on his feet.

"She's here master!" Migsy blurted out excitedly "Here in London. She is opening a new store, Migsy is seeing her do it sir. It is called _**Hermione's**_ and is joined to Knockturn Alley, sir."

Draco forgot all about trying to sweet talk Suzie for some breakfast as he immediately strode for the entrance into Diagon Alley, all thoughts completely occupied by Granger.

"There is more, sir!" Migsy cried out, running along next to him, his bare feet slapping against the cold stone floor.

"She is living there sir, with her babies too. She is coming back from many different places sir, though her last listed address was in Tuscany. She has two little ones and Migsy is not certain sir, but they is looking very much like the master did as a boy, sir. Migsy thinks they must be your children, sir."

Draco felt like the words his elf were uttering were changing his whole life. He had to find her. Now! He needed to know dammit. He had a right to know if he had sired children and as he rushed quickly through the streets towards the place, letting the elf guide him and picking up on snatches of gossip already circulating about whatever new store she had opened, Draco felt his heart pounding a hundred miles an hour and turmoil rolling through him, wreaking havoc.

When he reached the store he caught his breath. It was clearly popular and he had no doubt it was partly due to her celebrity status from the role she had played in the war. People would be curious to suddenly have her back. And they clearly were since the entire shop looked as though it was bursting with people. In spite of that, Draco could see her inside it, bustling about behind a counter. She seemed to be serving drinks of some kind, though there was no indication as to whether they were of a particular type or not.

"Have you ever tasted anything so good?" a pair of witches were gabbing to each other as they went by him, both clutching different sized cups with strange coloured liquids inside.

"No, it's like I'm being warmed from the inside. I don't know what she put in this but I feel better than I have in weeks."

They bustled by him, seemingly unaware of his presence and Draco hung back for a moment. Taking a deep breath he slipped into the store, finding a corner to stand in where he could watch what she was doing without having her notice that he was there.

"Might I have your hand for a moment?" Draco watched Hermione Granger ask a young witch with raven hair. The witch didn't seem surprised by the request and extended her hand eagerly. Granger's eyes drifted closed for a few moments before she opened them with a small nod. Immediately she reached for four different canisters, each of them labelled with funny words that he recognised to be written in Latin, and he watched her measure different portions of ingredients out of each one, dumping them into a tall glass. She followed them with a splash of milk and a scoop of ice-cream, tapping the side of the cup with her wand and watching it for a moment.

When it was done she popped a lid on top of it, stuck a straw in it and handed it to the young witch, taking her money and smiling, chatting to her amicably all the while.

Draco found himself enraptured by her as he watched from his corner.

She wore a pale pink blouse with little cap sleeves over black denim jeans. Hanging down her front was an apron in striped blues, purples and greens that matched the store décor and that had her logo scribbled across the front in gold lettering. It matched the cups she was giving drinks out in as well. Her hair had grown since he'd seen her five years ago and Draco was surprised at the way it hung in long loose curls down her back. She had it pulled into a high pony-tail at the back of her head, and still the tips brushed the middle of her back. A sweeping side fringe occasionally fell into her honey brown eyes and she had a ready smile for every customer.

As far as he could see, the customers she had attracted weren't ordering something specific from her, but instead were letting her create something especially for them. In fact he was so caught up in watching her that it took him a moment to notice the other figures on her side of the bench.

The whole store fell silent as the pair of blonde twins both ran into the kitchen space with Hermione Granger and Draco could see the way the witch he had known, forgot all about her customers as she turned to her children.

"Mummy" the little girl cried, her cheeks wet with tears while the little boy smirked a wicked little smirk that Draco knew just a little too well. It was an expression he was well known for and Draco wondered if any of the other magical folk were drawing the same conclusions he had. That they were looking at the illegitimate children of Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger.

He'd spent so much time over the last two days wondering if they were his that he wasn't even shocked as he thought of them that way, nor at the idea of being forever linked to a witch he'd so often called a mudblood, if only through the children they shared.

"What is it baby?" Hermione asked her daughter, stooping to scoop the crying girl up and lift her to her hip, cuddling her comfortingly. Draco caught his breath at the way the little girl looked so much like Granger and yet so much like him as well. She had his grey eyes and platinum hair, Hermione's curls and soft glowing complexion and Hermione's delicate features. His genetics had saved her from buck teeth and the intensely bushy hair that he remembered Granger having as a girl. The little boy might have been his childhood clone, but the girl was a clone of Granger in all but eyes and hair.

"Ely called me stupid!" the girl sniffled and Draco felt a jolt to learn his son's name. He didn't even need to ask Granger anymore whether or not they were his. He knew they were. He could see it.

"Ely, why did you call Pippa stupid?" Hermione Granger's voice was sharp and Draco saw the way Ely blanched at her sharp tone. He clearly hadn't been expecting his mother to scold him in public. Draco was too busy reeling to learn that his children names were Pippa and Ely. Not to mention that he actually had two kids. He was only twenty-two for merlin's sake! And he had a son and a daughter with a girl who no doubt hated him more than anyone else in the world.

"She was being a moron" Ely defended himself "She wanted to cook us breakfast on the stove and I told her that she would be stupid too since you told us not to while you were busy and Mopsy was working."

"Pippa?" Hermione asked of the girl on her hip sternly, seeming oblivious to her customers.

The little girl looked guilty before she snuggled her little face into Granger's neck.

"You've both already had breakfast" Hermione told them, frowning "Are you still hungry?"

Both of the twins nodded their heads and Draco felt something inside him give way with a painful kind of burning sensation as he looked at them, longing to know them.

"Well then why didn't you come down here and ask me?" Granger continued to question her children. They both looked at her guiltily and shyly, and Draco could tell they had been too nervous to interrupt their mother on her opening day.

"Come on" Hermione sighed, walking over and pulling a large biscuit tin off one of the shelves. She opened it, handing both of her children two biscuits each. "Pippa, you know you're not allowed to use the stove when I'm not there to supervise. Ely, you were right to tell her not to but you shouldn't have called your sister stupid. I'd like you to apologise please?"

Ely blushed pink and glanced at the watching crowd who seemed completely enthralled by Granger and her children. Draco knew he was, though that was because he was seeing the children he hadn't known he had, being reprimanded.

"I'm sorry Pippa" Ely mumbled, fixing his eyes on his sister. Granger set the girl down and Draco watched the way the twins walked toward each other. "I didn't want you to get in trouble" the boy continued "or to get hurt."

Draco was surprised by their maturity as he watched Pippa and Ely embrace and his heart gave a strange stutter when he heard his daughter say "I love you Ely. Want to go play?"

"I love you too" Ely said softly and Draco watched his children run out of the kitchen again, holding hands, their conflict resolved.

She watched them go for a moment before turning back to her customers with a sheepish smile.

Draco didn't know how long he stood there in the corner watching her work, waiting for the crowds to slowly disperse as the lunch rush ebbed and the afternoon slowly died off when the hype began to drop off a little. He been standing in the secluded corner so long that she didn't notice him there at first and Draco watched the way she waved her wand to flip the sign so she could have a lunch break.

She scrubbed her hands over her face with her back to him and Draco knew she hadn't seen him, especially when he heard her sigh.

He didn't know what to say to her.

He'd been standing there for hours now, watching her work, catching glimpses of his children, who seemed to have extended their playground to her kitchen. He liked that she didn't scold them as they buzzed around her, no doubt getting in her way, making loud noises. From what he had seen she seemed to be doing a better than reasonable job at raising them alone.

After watching her most of the morning, Draco didn't want to upset her. And as he had the thought he realised just how much he had changed in the past five years. The old Draco would've been ready to pounce on her, to demand to know why she hadn't told him she'd gotten pregnant, why she thought she could keep his children from him, what she thought she was doing trying to raise them alone.

The new Draco didn't want to do any of those things. He didn't want to upset her, didn't want to risk fighting with her in front of her kids. And they were hers. He might've been responsible for their conception and they might've picked up his physical traits, but he'd had nothing to do with raising them, hadn't even known they existed. Still trying to think of something to say, Draco watched as she pulled a combination of seven different canisters down off the shelves and began dumping herbs into a large copper kettle to steep. He moved slowly across the room, not wanting to startle her while she was boiling water, and not quite trusting her not to get mad or scared and hex him or throw the boiled water on him.

"Are you ever going to speak?" She asked quietly, startling him as she pulled two pink and white spotted mugs down and poured the steeped tea into them. She added generous dollops of honey to both of them, all the while with her back to him.

"Granger?" he asked, not certain she'd been talking to him since she said it so civilly.

"You've been here for hours now Malfoy and the only thing you can think of to say to me is my surname?" she asked him, slowly turning towards him and extending one of the mugs across the lavender bench top towards him.

"I don't really know what else to say" Draco told her honestly, eyeing the tea suspiciously until he saw her take a sip of hers. "What's that?" he nodded at the cup she'd offered him.

"Tea… you don't have to drink it. But you look like you need it." She told him, leaning back against the bench behind her and clutching her mug in both hands in front of her body.

Very slowly, feeling incredibly disturbed by her attitude towards him given the fact that he had raped her five years ago, Draco reached out and picked up the mug of tea. It smelled mostly like honey and was bright red. He sniffed at it, wondering what she had put in it before deciding it would be the height of rudeness to refuse to drink it. Her expression flickered for a moment to see that he'd actually drunk from it when he took a sip and Draco knew she was surprised by his new attitude as well.

"Well…. Are you ever going to say anything or do you plan to lurk in my shop for the next hundred years, staring at us?" she asked him finally.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Draco asked her quietly, feeling a strange tightness in the pit of his stomach even though the tea actually was making him feel a little better.

"Why would I Malfoy?" She asked, clearly not needing to clarify that he was talking about the fact that she'd given birth to his kids. "It's not as though they were planned, and I didn't exactly want much to do with you… after everything that happened."

"Why did you keep them?" Draco found himself asking, surprising both of them with his question. He watched strange emotions flick across her face. "I mean… surely you would've noticed that you were…. There are potions you can take within the first month to lose them."

Hermione watched him with a darkness in her eyes.

"I didn't notice… I was three months along before I realised. What with the war and grief…. I was too focused on what you took from me to realise what you'd given me" Hermione Granger told him softly, and Draco flinched at her reference to what he had done to her.

"And you didn't think when you realised that you might do something about it? I doubt you made the conscious decision to keep the bastard spawn of someone like me after what I did to you" Draco replied, never taking his eyes off her and wondering if she had put something in the tea they were both drinking to keep them from shouting at each other.

"Fun fact about conception between magic folk… no matter what you do to try and end a pregnancy that occurs in the circumstances that mine did, nothing works." Granger told him, raising her eyebrows as though daring him to argue with her about it.

"I didn't know that…." Draco murmured "Do you regret that you couldn't terminate?"

She was silent for a long time, though he could see the answer glowing in her bright eyes. She seemed to be trying to wrap her head around his demeanour and attitude now.

"I did…." Hermione admitted "I raged about it for months, until they were born…. But now. They're my whole life."

Draco nodded, knowing now that she'd put something calming in the tea to keep him from shouting at her and vice versa. He knew that neither of them could ever discuss such a thing so calmly when they had been enemies the last time they had seen each other.

"Why didn't you tell me about them, Hermione?" Draco demanded, watching her flinch to hear him using her first name.

"Why would I have? You raped me, Malfoy! Why would I ever tell you that because you did, you'd knocked up the person you hated the most in the world? Why would I risk having you trying to interfere or take them from me? I assume that is why you're here?" she snapped.

"I don't want to take them from you Granger, but it wasn't fair of you to keep their existence from me."

"Why would I tell you Malfoy? So you could scorn us? Or maybe called them mudbloods too?"

"They're halfbloods" Draco corrected her "But none of that matters to me anymore Granger. Sometimes I don't think it ever really mattered, it's just what I'd been taught to believe. I know better now."

"Why are you here Malfoy?" Granger demanded after glaring at him doubtfully.

"Because you bloody well kept the fact that I'm a father from me for more than four years! Because I saw the three of you the other day in the book store and saw how much they look like me and had to bloody well know!" Draco almost shouted as though it should be obvious.

"Well now you know" was all she said before draining her cup and taking it over to the sink. "Did you need anything else?" she asked him sarcastically when he didn't speak again or move.

"Granger" Draco warned, feeling a spark of anger at her flippant dismissive behaviour.

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Draco tried to reign in that spark, to snuff it out. She had every right to treat him this way, even if she had kept his kids from him. He'd bloody well raped her, treated her like shit and let people torture her. Of course she was being a bitch to him. She had no reason to believe he wasn't still the wanker she'd known at school.

"Look Granger" Draco began when she started to walk away from him as though she intended to just leave him there in the kitchen "I understand why you didn't tell me. I don't like it but I get it…."

She slowly turned back to look at him and he could see that she had a nasty retort on the tip of her tongue so he rushed ahead, jumping in to try and stop her from saying whatever she was about to say that would no doubt result in an argument.

"I'm sorry Hermione" he blurted out, his eyes locking onto hers and being held captive in her gaze. So many emotions flashed in them as he said it, pain, fear, anger, hatred, sadness, surprise. They all burned bright in a matter of seconds.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you, and for what my family did to you. For every cruel thing I ever said to you or about you…. I know there aren't any words to make you believe me, but I really have changed." Draco continued, staring into her eyes and wondering how he had never noticed what a nice colour they were before right now.

"Sorry doesn't really make me feel any better Malfoy!" Granger spat at him "You bloody well raped me! It was bad enough that you just stood there and did nothing to stop her hurting me, but then you… how could you do that?" she demanded and Draco could see the pain burning bright in her brown eyes, could hear the pained catch in her voice.

"I was trying to help you" Draco admitted, letting out the truth he'd been holding in since that day.

"Help me?" she screeched "How would dragging me away from them and violating my body in an attempt to gain information I didn't have, in any way help me? You flipping raped me Malfoy. Tore my clothes off me and burned away any semblance of innocence or humanity I'd been clinging to in the middle of a bloody war. And you want to stand there and tell me that you raped me to fucking help me?"

Draco looked at her miserably. He knew how ridiculous it sounded and he hated himself so much for ever having done that to anyone.

"Granger, if I could see that torturing you wasn't working, so could everyone else. If it hadn't been me, Bellatrix would probably have commanded Greyback to rape you and let him bite you while he did it. I could see it, my mother could see it and you can bet your arse he could see it because he was bloody well drooling at the prospect" Draco told her, trying to make her understand how it had looked from his perspective. Trying to make her understand that as awful as it had been, he really had done it in an attempt to save her from an even worse fate.

"She was going to try having someone rape the truth out of you no matter what. And in spite of what you think I wasn't ok with just standing there and letting her torture you. I might not have liked you much, but I liked you a sight better than I liked her and if you think me so heartless that I could just stand there and watch someone I'd spent six years sharing a classroom with suffer through that unflinchingly, you've got another think coming!" Draco told her harshly, getting annoyed when he saw her cynical, angry expression.

"I could see that she was a minute away from throwing you to Greyback and I knew he would hurt you. You might not believe it but I tried not to. I took you away from the dining room so they wouldn't see you cry and if you remember rightly I did the best I could not to hurt you. I lied to them all about Potter, when we all knew it was him, and I tried to make something that was going to be awful for you no matter what, a little less awful. I never wanted to do that to you and I'm sorry that I did. I'm not sorry that it was me instead of that monster, and I'm not sorry that you wound up pregnant because of it. So don't stand there and glare all your hatred at me as though I'm the ultimate villain when I did what I could to keep you from being eaten and fucked for information I knew you didn't have."

"So then why couldn't you have just told them that? Why did you still do it? They weren't in the bloody room, why couldn't you have lied about it? You could've just told them you'd done it instead" Granger asked him sounding angry and vulnerable at the same time.

"You needed to look broken Granger, or they would've killed all of us and then let Greyback eat us" Draco told her, trying to make her understand. Trying to convince both of them that he wasn't as evil as she believed.

"What and you think that somehow makes it all better? You think that I could ever just forgive you for doing that to me? I tried to fight you and you hit me Malfoy! I still have the scar on my lip. So don't stand there and tell me you didn't mean to hurt me. You did and you know it!"

"And I still have gouges scarred out of my neck where you scratched me! You think that somehow during the past five years I could just forgive myself for what I did to you Granger? You think that I don't have nightmares about all of the terrible things I had to do just to stay alive in a massively fucked up situation? I still have nightmares of the fear and pain in your eyes and the tear that slid down your cheek when I did that to you. Do you really think that I would even ask you to forgive me for it when I can't even forgive myself?" Draco demanded.

She glared at him and he could see how much it still hurt her to remember it, making him hate himself a little more though he hadn't thought it possible. She started to walk away from him again and Draco lost control of his tongue, letting it run away from him in a desperate attempt to prove to her that he had changed. He didn't know until he'd seen her a few days ago, but a part of him yearned to have her understand why he'd done what he did. And now another part of him was yearning to have her accept the new version of him, at least enough to let him meet his children.

He had no control of himself anymore as she began to turn her back on him, dismissing him as nothing more than the evil bully who had hurt her so badly and committed such heinous deeds. There was a burning in his chest and a tightness in his stomach and an aching in his soul and the words just spilled out of him.

"Please don't go Hermione" Draco heard himself beg of her "Please?"

Before he knew what he was doing, Draco levered himself up and over her counter top into her shop kitchen, moving towards her slowly while she looked ready to flee.

"Don't just walk away from me after this" Draco begged of her softly "I can't take it back now, but if I could I would. All of it. If I could get hold of a time turner or go back to that first day of Hogwarts I'd bloody well hug you or something. But I can't Hermione. No matter what I do, neither of us can take it back and if we could you wouldn't have those kids you love so much."

"I know that Malfoy" Hermione told him, eyeing him warily still looking a little fearful that he might try to hurt her. "I can't forgive you for what did Draco, but I can't hate you for it either because if you hadn't I wouldn't have my kids."

"Please Hermione" Draco begged, inching closer to her "Please. I don't expect you to forgive me. You don't even have to like me… but please don't keep them from me anymore. Please? They're the only family I have left."

Hermione Granger stared into the grey eyes of Draco Malfoy that were identical to those of both of her children from much closer than she was used to as he kept inching forwards while her pride wouldn't let her back away any further. Her whole body ached just from being near him and thinking about the way they'd tortured her. She tried to recall that day, which she had done her best to block out, wondering if it were true that he might've been trying to help.

From what she knew of rape she knew it could've been a lot worse than what he'd done to her. He'd wrestled her out of her clothes and he'd hit her when she'd scratched, bitten and fought him, trying to escape. But she also remembered the way he hadn't been any more forceful than he needed to be. He hadn't brutalised her as she knew the awful werewolf would have done. He hadn't taken any pleasure from the pain he was causing her and a very small part of her hated him and hated herself for the knowledge that if it had happened under consensual circumstances she would have even enjoyed sleeping with him.

He'd still raped her though.

"Is that why you're here? You want to get to know them?" Hermione asked him, searching his face for some clue that he was still the cruel hearted boy she'd known. He looked close to tears at the idea of having her tell him to stuff it or that he'd never be in their lives and she wondered what drove him to want to be anywhere near her.

"I'm a lot of things Hermione…. But I promised myself that if I ever had kids, a negligent father wouldn't be one of them. I can understand that you don't trust me, and that you might not want me influencing them because you think I'm evil… but that's not who I am anymore. Please… I know I don't deserve it after what I did to you but please give me a second chance." Draco begged her, and Hermione stared at him in shock when he actually got down on both knees in front of her, begging her with his heart and soul glittering in those familiar eyes.

She stayed silent so long, staring at him in shock and uncertainty that Draco was certain she was going to tell him to go to hell like he deserved. The very thought of such a thing hurt him so much that he felt like he was being tortured beneath her gaze and his eyes stung with tears of pain and failure as he waited for her judgement.

"I won't let anyone I don't trust near my children Malfoy" Hermione told him finally in a soft, strange voice as though she couldn't believe what she was saying any more than he could.

"If you want to have anything to do with them, you're going to have to earn that right. And you're going to have to prove to me that you're not the jerk I went to Hogwarts with. You've done awful things, especially to me and I don't care if they are half you, they're half me and you've hated me from the start…. If you can prove you've changed, that your influence might be good for them, and that you won't teach them to be awful and hateful… maybe I'll let you meet them…. Maybe."

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys, thanks for all the reviews so far. I love hearing predictions for how the story will go so don't be afraid to offer them. I do my best to include them and keep all y'all happy. **

**Please feed the hungry writer a Review.**

**xx-Kitten =)**


	4. Chapter 4

**What You've Given Me**

**Chapter 4**

_You can close your eyes to things you don't want to see, but you can't close your heart to things you don't want to feel- Johnny Depp._

Very slowly Draco Malfoy got to his feet, finding that he wasn't the least bit embarrassed to have just begged on his knees for a second chance from Hermione Granger. He had thought that he would, but he could not find it anywhere in his soul to regret having just fallen on his knees before a girl he had once despised.

"Thank you Hermione" Draco said softly, noticing that when he stood within two meters of her she had to look up to meet his gaze and that it made her uncomfortable to do so. Hermione Granger stared up at him seriously.

"Don't make me regret this decision Malfoy. If you somehow trick me into believing you've changed and worm your way into my children's hearts only to turn out just as big a monster as I'm trying to get past believing you are… you'll regret it. And if you ever do anything to hurt me or my kids… I'll kill you," She told him before walking around him in her kitchen and picking up the cups they had both used. He could tell she felt unsettled by her decision and by having him in her space so Draco took care to keep his distance from her as he rounded the bench to sit on a stool at the bar-like counter top, trying to make her more comfortable.

"What are you still doing here?" she asked him when she turned to see him sitting there with his hands interlaced and his chin resting on them, watching her. She'd been making some kind of new beverage, this time calling for milk and hot chocolate as well as some other spices that he didn't think would make it taste very nice. Draco offered her a small smile, enjoying the way she looked a little feisty. He could tell she'd been hoping he would leave and that she had turned around waiting for the tinkle of her doorbell as he left.

"If I'm to prove I've changed, you'll have to get to know me Hermione, and I you. That seems unattainable outside of each other's company," Draco told her mildly, enjoying the way she narrowed her eyes on him.

"So you _are_ intending to lurk in my shop for the rest of time" she sighed finally. "I'm on my lunch break Malfoy" she added, grumbling while she drank her hot chocolate concoction.

"That's perfect. We can't be interrupted by your customers," Draco replied.

"Have you always been this infuriating or is this a special display for my enjoyment?" She snapped, looking pissed off at him now "I don't have time to play 'get to know you' today Malfoy, I have kids that need to be fed and a store that I need to open through there to the muggle population" she pointed, stamping her foot irritably.

"I can understand that, however, if I were to leave now and let you stew on your decision to get to know me, putting it off until a later date, I have no doubt that that fantastic brain of yours will convince you it was all a bad idea. Then I would never have the chance to get to know my children, therefore I'm yours for the afternoon, you look busy with your opening, do you need any help running things while you adjust to the ebb and flow of customers?" Draco offered.

Granger stared at him in surprise.

"What would you know about dealing with customers, especially Muggles?" Hermione demanded.

"A great deal actually, given that I run an establishment that caters to both muggles and magical folk and I understand the complications of trying to keep on top of orders and keep customers happy" Draco replied, smirking at her now. She was going to have to get over the idea of underestimating how much he had changed and how different he was now from the spoiled rich jerk he had been at Hogwarts.

"Wait a minute" she said slowly "_You_ own the Drunken Mermaid?" she demanded disbelievingly.

"That's right Granger, and I have done for two and a half years," Draco told her smugly.

"Never saw that coming" he heard her mutter as she turned her back to him again, scanning her shelves of ingredients, looking for something.

"I can't say I really saw you going into business doing something like this either Granger" Draco replied, amused by her moods now. "Admittedly I didn't know much about you when we were at Hogwarts, but it surprised me when you didn't complete your seventh year, and even more when you didn't get some Ministry job with Potter and Weasley."

Slowly Hermione Granger turned those honey brown eyes on him and Draco watched her walk slowly towards him, looking into his grey eyes. He felt a strange little swooping feeling in his stomach.

"Didn't you have some protest going on while we were at Hogwarts to do with the treatment of House elves?" Draco continued when she didn't speak to him but peered into his eyes.

"The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare" Hermione murmured, as though she was only half listening and simply answering him instinctively.

"That was it" Draco said, trying not to grow uncomfortable beneath her gaze while she stared into his eyes from across her counter-top. "I always figured you'd go on to work with the Ministry as an Auror or maybe join the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures department…. I never figured you for the type to go into herb law and put it to use serving people tea."

"I wanted to work with the ministry before the war" Hermione told him, blinking rapidly and seeming to snap out of her strange trance "How did you know that?"

Draco smiled at her a little. "I was a dealer in information back then. How else could I have found out about your elf society thing to make fun of you for it? And as insufferable as it was to see you waving your arm about with the answer to every question, no one was ever going to deny that you were incredibly clever. Maybe you'd have done the Magical Creatures and Beings some favours…."

She had turned away from him and begun pulling an alarming number of canisters off the shelves, measuring them all out into little heapings in a large bowl. But as he spoke she turned slowly back to look at him, clearly not believing her ears.

"Did you just compliment me?" she asked him softly. Draco just shrugged at her.

They were both silent for a while and Draco watched her slowly preparing something with all of her ingredients, making him think she was making some kind of lunch for herself.

"What about you?" she finally said "I never imagined you owning a pub in London. To be honest I thought you'd just live off your family's money for the rest of your life."

"So did everyone else. Of course some hoped that I'd stay locked in Azkaban until the day I died…." Draco said quietly.

"You went to Azkaban?" Hermione asked him, spinning quickly to look at him, her eyebrows raised in surprise. Draco nodded.

"But…. What for? I never told anyone what you did to me. Not even my friends…." Hermione asked, looking confused.

"For what I did to Katie Bell and Madam Rosemerta in sixth year" Draco replied "For causing harm to others while attempting to kill Dumbledore. For becoming a Death Eater, even under pressure from my father. For knowingly shielding the Dark Lord from the Ministry in the Manor and not reporting it. For knowingly witnessing the death of several people and being involved in the kidnap of several others, including you, Potter, Weasley, Ollivander and the Lovegood girl."

Hermione was looking at him with a strange expression in her eyes and Draco wondered if she thought he deserved the time he had spent in Azkaban after what he had done to her.

"How long did they lock you up?" Hermione asked him softly, still stirring something routinely.

"One year…. I was let out because I was only sixteen when I took the mark. Since I wasn't of age, they blamed my father's influence and violent nature for what I'd done and for the way I'd been raised. If more of the Wizenagamot hadn't been raised in pureblood families and hadn't known the way such families are raised to believe that the word of their parents is law, I'd still be rotting there." Draco told her, finding it hard to look at her as he admitted it all to her "I should still be there. By the time I was sixteen I knew better… it was just too late to do anything else."

Just as she opened her mouth to respond to what he had said, looking at him with a strange expression of sympathy and blame mingled together, something distracted both of them. Draco's heart skipped a beat when he saw the twins, Pippa and Ely, at the edge of the kitchen, rushing towards their mother both clutching what looked like ingredients to make some food.

"Mummy can we make omelettes?" Pippa asked eagerly. "Mopsy isn't feeling well. She thinks she might be pregnant, and we put her to bed."

"Please mummy, I'm hungry?" Ely asked.

Both of them seemed almost oblivious to Draco where he sat at the bench, staring at them as he drank in the sight of them from much closer now, without other people getting in the way.

They were adorable children. Their hair shining bright in the warmly lit shop, each clutching an armful of ingredients to their little chests and looking at their mother with pleading eyes. Draco's breath caught at just how much the pair of them did look like him and he wondered how she had managed to keep their existence a secret for so long, and how she intended to keep the world from learning they were his.

It occurred to him suddenly that when people worked out he was their father they were going to draw their conclusions about the twin's conception. Hell maybe he would serve time in prison for raping Hermione after all, even though she'd never told anyone. He'd nearly admitted to it himself at his hearing, but had bitten his tongue during his sentencing, not because he was afraid of spending longer in prison, but because if she had wanted people to know what he had done to her, she would've spoken up and reported it to ensure he spent much longer in Azkaban.

"What kind of omelettes would you like to make?" Hermione asked them, her attention riveted completely on her children. She was so focused on them that Draco was sure he could drop dead, fall right of his stool with a thump, and she wouldn't even notice.

"The best kind" Pippa replied, throwing a look at Ely before rolling her little grey eyes as though Hermione had asked a silly question.

Ely nodded along, though his attention was now fixed on Draco.

Draco felt his heart begin to race as his son turned familiar Malfoy grey eyes upon him suspiciously.

"Who is he, Mama?" Ely asked Hermione warily, eyeing Draco as though he wasn't sure whether to run over and kick Draco in the shins and shake his hand in greeting.

Hermione had been busy gathering the ingredients out of their arms and setting them on the bench, summoning the utensils she would need to make them lunch with a wave of her wand. Draco could see the way she looked startled to be suddenly reminded that he was still there, but his attention wasn't really focused on her. He was too busy staring at his children and wondering how anyone in the entire world could think anything other than that they were his.

"Come here Ely' Hermione commanded him, eyeing Draco warily as well to see him so fixated on her children. Ely obeyed her, though he had engaged in a staring match with the man he did not know was his father.

"Pippa, Ely" Hermione began softly, squatting down next to both of her children and looking up at Draco. He wondered what she was going to tell them. She didn't seem like the type to lie about who he really was to them, but Draco knew in his very soul that she didn't want him close to them. She would not introduce him to them as their father, not only because it would confuse them, but because she had decided she wanted to make sure he was worth taking a chance on before she let her kids go and get attached to him when there was a possibility he was still a vile, evil little cockroach that deserved to be punched in the nose every day for the rest of his life.

"This is someone I'd like you to meet" Hermione Granger said finally after staring deep into the eyes of Draco Malfoy and using the talents she had to discover that he really might have had a change of heart.

"Why?" Pippa asked, looking shy as she tucked herself against Hermione's side.

"Because if he's good he might be able to come back and visit both of you. His name is Draco Malfoy. Mummy went to Hogwarts in the same year as Draco" Hermione told them quietly and Draco could see how much it cost her to peer up at him and introduce him to her children as just someone who'd gone to school with her rather than as the bastard who had tormented her and ridiculed her, who'd sought to hurt and annoy her almost every day during their time at Hogwarts. He could see it in her eyes that she wanted nothing more than to take their hands and Apparate them as far away from him as they could possibly get because he was the monster who had let his aunt torture her mercilessly and then raped her.

Draco wished there was some way he could take back everything he had ever done to her, every time he'd ever hurt her. As he stared down at her, feeling the weight of her words and the heaviness of her gaze on him, Draco wished there was some way he could right every wrong he'd ever done. It surprised him. Since the war had ended, since his time in Azkaban Prison, he had matured and come to understand that he had been a fool who'd been terribly and needlessly cruel to people who didn't deserve it. He had learned that muggles were not foul creatures, but actually clever beings with interesting gadgets and ways of surviving in a world without magic.

In all that time he had often wished he could take back many of the things he had said and done that were nasty and cruel-hearted. But he'd never felt such a yearning to right the wrongs he had done to any one person that wasn't him. He'd regretted being such a fool and hadn't liked learning just how much of a useless prick he really was, but in that time he'd never felt as though everything he'd ever done to any one person was not only unjust, but utterly despicable.

Not until now as he looked down at the young woman who had once been the sidekick of his school rival and the two small children they had both unwillingly conceived, all of whom were watching him intently and warily, as though afraid he might explode out of his skin and reveal the black-hearted demon that ruled his soul.

"Draco… This is Phillippa and Elphias Granger, better known as Pippa and Ely" Hermione continued and he felt a little twinge of annoyance that she had given them her last name instead of his. It was foolish of him, because of course she wouldn't give them his name. He'd raped her and she'd spent the past five years trying to hide that fact from the world and from her friends.

"It's nice to meet you both" Draco said, getting off his stool and walking around the bench into the kitchen again. He hunkered down to their level, suddenly aware of how small they really were and how fragile, how precious and special they were. His heart was thumping painfully in his chest and he knew just by looking at them that he'd fallen under their spell because he loved with the pair of them immediately.

It was a revelation to him. He'd always heard stories of the way parents were drawn under the spell of love for their children the minute they laid eyes on them, ensnared by some unknown force that inexplicably drew a parent to dote on their child, to love them and care for them and do anything to ensure their safety and happiness. He'd even seen it in action from both of his parents who, for all their flaws, had both loved him fiercely. But he'd never fully comprehended it.

It had seemed a romantic type of notion to him, something people said when they tried to explain that their children were important to them. He'd been wrong to believe it. It was painful as he stared at his son and daughter with a hopeful smile; painful and stabbing and so encompassing that he knew even without Granger's threat earlier that he would never be able to make them anything but happy, never be able to hurt them and definitely would never be able to just walk away from them.

It was like a deep rooted ache in his soul and it hurt all the more to know that they were four and a half years old and he'd missed that much of their lives already.

Draco slowly offered his hand to Pippa, holding it open and flat, straight up. She eyed him and his hand warily before looking at her mother. Draco held his breath as he waited for Granger to give him permission to touch them both. She gave a little nod and smiled at her daughter before she watched him with an unreadable expression on his face. When Pippa shyly reached out her hand and touch his, Draco led it to his lips, kissing the back of it as he would upon meeting any lady in high society.

The little girl blushed bright pink and turned her face into Hermione's neck to hide from him while Draco grinned. Next he offered his hand to his son to shake. Ely looked wary and like maybe he didn't want to shake his father's hand. The little boy crossed his arms over his chest.

"Ely, shake Draco's hand" Hermione scolded him gently when Ely just glared at him instead of responding.

"Why?" He asked defiantly.

'Because it's the polite thing to do" Hermione told him, looking amused though she was obviously trying to be serious.

"He looks shifty" the little boy replied and Draco nearly laughed to hear his own son call him shifty while standing there as an exact child-sized replica of himself.

"That was very rude of you Ely. You apologise and shake his hand now or you're not allowed any cookies for a whole week." Hermione reprimanded him. Draco smirked a little when Ely stuck out his hand and gripped Draco's fiercely, clearly trying to crush his father's hand. Draco let him think he was succeeding by faking a wince.

"Sorry" grumbled the little boy before pulling his hand away and sticking both into his pockets. "Can we cook now?"

"Yes, we can." Hermione replied. Brushing a hand over his hair as she got back on her feet. She smirked at Draco when he stood up too.

"Do you need any help?" he offered.

"You know how to cook?" Hermione asked him. Draco nodded, not surprised by her doubt. She looked wary and had just opened her mouth to answer when they were both distracted by the tinkle of the bell to the muggle side of her shop. Frowning, Hermione turned towards the sound.

"Pippa, Ely, stay here with Draco a minute." She told them, glancing back at him and Draco felt the weight in her stare as she held his gaze and whispered "That door was locked…"

Draco felt his blood run cold at the idea of someone getting into the muggle side of her shop without breaking in.

"Do you want me to check it?" he asked her seriously, pulling his wand from his coat pocket.

She shook her head quickly "No, but I'm trusting you with them Malfoy…." She bit her lip though her eyes were serious and he could see the worry in them as she glanced at her children before she disappeared through the kitchen around a corner in the hall.

Draco felt the weight of the responsibility she'd just given him so quickly take his breath away, whooshing out in shock.

"Hermione?" a female voice called out.

"Ginny?" Draco heard Granger ask in shock.

"Yes, it's me. Listen could you watch James and Teddy for a little while? I know it's your opening day, but you have Pippa and Ely here anyway and I really need to cover a story on the Wasps. I can't take them with me, it's too far to Floo there."

"Oh, um yes, of course I can. Hi boys" Draco heard her greet them.

Before he could stop them Pippa and Ely ran for the hallway Hermione had taken and Draco dashed after them, feeling like a failure already. All four children squealed happily when they saw each other and Draco rounded to corner just in time to see Hermione grinning at them fondly.

"Malfoy?" Ginny Potter demanded the minute she laid eyes on him and Draco felt himself cringe when he saw both young mothers glaring daggers at him. Ginny because she'd always disliked him and Hermione because as Draco had done the minute he saw his kids, it would be obvious to Ginny that they looked way too much like him when she'd not admitted to anyone but him that they were his.

"Hermione what is Malfoy doing in your shop?" Ginny demanded, pulling out her wand and looking ready to hex him.

Draco saw Hermione open her mouth, and then hesitate.

"You might as well get used to the idea of telling people" Draco cautioned her "It's a little obvious."

Ginny looked between them quizzically and Draco stared at her drolly before he looked pointedly at Pippa and Ely, both of whom were currently playing ring around the rosy with a little boy that had blonde and turquoise hair who looked older than them and a smaller boy that was an exact replica of Potter with messy black hair.

"Oh… My…." Ginny breathed and Draco watched her gaze jump between himself, Hermione, and the twins. "Hermione… is Malfoy….?"


	5. Chapter 5

**What You've Given Me**

**Chapter 5**

Hermione closed her eyes in horror at what was about to happen to her life.

"Pippa! Ely!" Hermione called to her kids, distracting the laughing and dancing children.

"Si Mama?" they asked her, reverting back the Italian way of addressing her in their surprise since they'd spent their whole lives until last month in Italy. They spoke Italian better than they spoke English though Hermione had taken great care to teach them both languages fluently.

"I'd like you to take Teddy and James with you upstairs. You can put on a movie if you like. The boys will be staying with us for the afternoon while Aunt Ginny goes to work." Hermione told her children, feeling the weight of Ginny's gaze on her and the way Malfoy was also staring at her, though when she shot a glance at him she realised that he looked almost apologetic about what was going to happen.

"What about making omelettes Mama?" Ely piped up, looking concerned and hungry.

"I'll bring them up for all of you. We'll cook them together another time, okay bambino?" Hermione told him firmly, he looked like he wanted to argue but when she gave him a stern look he nodded and all four children ran out of the room, Pippa and Teddy each holding James's hands since he had only been walking for a few months.

"What the bloody hell Hermione?" Ginny demanded the minute the door to the stairs clicked closed. The pregnant red head was staring between Hermione and Malfoy looking confused, angry and upset all at once.

"This is why I never told you" Hermione told Ginny honestly, deciding for now that it would be for the best to just ignore Malfoy who was currently leaning against the counter inside her kitchen on the muggle side of her shop.

"Put your wand away before a muggle sees you" she added when she saw Ginny holding her wand threateningly trained on Malfoy.

"Malfoy's the father of your kids?" Ginny demanded in a screech "Bloody, Malfoy?!"

Hermione wanted to bury her face in her hands. She'd purposely kept the truth about their parentage from her friends for this reason. They were all likely to first jump to crazy conclusions like that she'd been secretly with Malfoy, but eventually they would work out the timeline and realise that he'd raped her.

At first she'd been too mortified and embarrassed and angry about it to tell anyone; but after her kids had been born and she'd grown to love them so much that her heart ached every time they were out of the room, Hermione had been slowly letting go of her anger. She hated that he had done that to her because of the way she'd felt so powerless to stop him even when she'd fought back, and she had hated being pregnant after the first time she'd had sex, not to mention the whole non-consensual thing. But that had been five years ago. And for the past four and a bit years she'd had her two wonderful children to love, which she wouldn't have had if not for what he had done.

She didn't really know why she'd let him into her shop, or why she'd introduced him to the twins, except for the way she felt like she could see right into his soul every time she looked into his familiar grey eyes. The craft she had learned combined Potion-making, Herbology and Divination to allow her to not only create drinks out of herbs that would make people feel good, but through Divination - an obscure version she had learned in Italy that incorporated energies, palm-reading and iris-reading – She had learned how to sense the emotions and ailments of anyone she touched.

She might've been very careful to keep from touching Malfoy, as she was careful to avoid touching anyone anywhere but her hands except for her kids, but his emotions and tormented soul were like a beacon that called out to her loud and clear about his personality. She didn't like that she couldn't go on hating him, but she would have to accept that he had changed. He was filled with self-loathing and sadness at the way his life had played out, and when he'd looked at Pippa and Ely, she'd seen and felt the way his whole being was consumed by love for them.

"Please stop yelling and calm down Ginny" Hermione told her friend, trying to calm herself down and not let Ginny's emotions make her react.

"Calm down? Hermione how can you say that? You just disappeared after the war. You came to the funerals, and then you were gone without a word. We didn't hear anything from you for almost five months before you owled us telling us you were okay, that you had gone looking for your parents and didn't know when you'd be back. Ron and Harry were ready to charge off the Australia after you but didn't because you expressly asked them not to. Then we heard nothing from you. Nothing! For two bloody years!" Ginny screeched.

"You start writing again, sporadically, saying you didn't know when you'd be back but that all was fine and wouldn't tell us anything else or where you were. Then you show up here last month with two little angel-haired children calling you Mom. You already know exactly how I feel about the fact that you didn't even see fit to tell us you'd had kids and you were so different…." Ginny said, her voice lowering slowly as she stared at Hermione with wide eyes now.

"You kept the truth from us because they were Malfoy's?" She asked, glaring at Malfoy now.

Hermione sighed, re-entering her kitchen and trying to ignore Malfoy leaning against one of the benches as she set about making something to calm the redhead. Glancing at him subtly, Hermione made a note to add a few extra things to the tea she made him, sensing that he was about as pleased to learn she'd kept the existence of her children even from her friends for the past five years, as they had been.

"Don't just sigh and make a damned drink Hermione! Bloody hell. You let Malfoy knock you up in the middle of a bloody war and then ran off, coming back a completely different person and you're just going to sigh about it?"

"Shut it, Weasley!"

Hermione jumped as she heard the anger in Malfoy's voice as he spat those words at Ginny and glanced at him, surprised.

"So it speaks" Ginny said nastily and Hermione could imagine the way the fiery red head was glaring at the blonde man.

"Ginny" Hermione warned softly, finally responding "Sit down and drink this, or I'm not telling you anything."

"What?" Ginny spluttered, looking concerned when Hermione carried over a mug of bright purple tea for her. Hermione didn't say anything else as she returned to the counter and picked up a second cup of tea, this one bright green with orange swirls in it, and calmly handed it to Malfoy who looked too surprised to do anything other than take it from her.

Hermione looked up at him with her back to Ginny, staring into his eyes before very softly whispering to him "Please don't ever tell a soul the truth."

Draco was so surprised that his eyebrows seemed to disappear into his hairline.

"I've already explained this to you Ginny" Hermione continued, turning to her friend who was too shocked to have drunk her tea yet. "When I left I wrote you all a note. I'd seen on the news that there had been severe storms in Australia. I went searching for my parents, and as you are aware, I found what was left…."

"Hermione" Ginny began softly, her eyes filling with sadness and sympathy as Hermione mentioned the fact that her parents had gotten caught in a flash flood in the little town where they were living in Australia and had both drowned in their car. Hermione held up her hand to cut Ginny off.

"I didn't realise when I left that I was pregnant, and after I found my parents, you know that I went a little barmy. I was four months along before I even realised that I was pregnant and by then I was in Switzerland. I kept travelling around until I was seven months, when I got too big to be travelling around safely by myself. I got myself a job in a coffee shop in Tuscany, and a little cottage for us to live in…." Hermione sighed, a far off look coming into her eyes as she thought about the cottage she'd lived in.

Made out of stone, the single bedroom place had been airy and cosy. She'd kept a beautiful garden filled with herbs and flowers that the owner had planted. She'd been a witch as well and had been the one to teach Hermione herb-lore and divination. She'd loved everything about her life in Tuscany, the heat and the coastal breeze that had carried her spirit through each winter even when she felt she wouldn't make it.

"We were happy" Hermione sighed softly "But it was lonely too. I missed you and Harry and Ron. By then I'd never gotten around to telling you about the kids, so I just waited until we got here…."

"But they're his?" Ginny asked, sipping her tea and appearing much calmer now, pointing indicatively at Malfoy.

Hermione didn't take her eyes off her friend as she replied "He's their father, yes."

"And you didn't think that maybe you ought to have mentioned that the past few times when we all asked you who their father was?" Ginny demanded.

"You mean so you could react like this?" Hermione said, getting irritated at her friend "Bloody hell, Ginny. Malfoy only found out this morning and he didn't flip the way you are."

"You didn't tell him either?" Ginny said and Hermione prayed that Ginny would forget to ask how on earth in had come to be that Hermione Granger had wound up knocked up by Draco Malfoy. She had no intention of ever telling anyone that he'd raped her, and absolutely no idea what lie to tell Ginny to keep her from finding out the truth.

After all, the age of the twins gave away the timeline of when they'd been conceived, and Hermione knew that none of them would ever believe that she'd willingly climbed into bed with him on a spur of the moment decision in the middle of a war.

"No. I didn't tell anyone. No one knew at all," Hermione admitted.

"I can't believe I didn't realise" Ginny said after a little while, staring at Malfoy and seeing just how much Hermione's kids looked like him. "So that's why he's here?"

"He saw us a few days ago but didn't know how to reach me until this morning. Since it's kind of obvious given the fact that Ely is a miniature version of him and Pippa has the same hair and eyes, he worked out in a hurry that he was their father."

Hermione crossed her fingers hoping Ginny would be too shocked to ask her about how he could be their father. She appreciated the way Malfoy had stayed quiet since she'd handed him a second cup of tea and Hermione sighed as she took a look draught of her own tea.

"Don't you need to do that interview" Hermione asked Ginny quietly after they'd stood around in silence for a few minutes.

"Oh bollocks" Ginny cursed, glancing at her watch. Hermione watched her throw back the rest of her tea and get to her feet. "I should be back to get them around six, is that ok? If I'm not Harry will probably come by and grab the boys. And Hermione…. When I get back, I want to know how in Merlin's name you wound up pregnant to Malfoy." Ginny warned her.

Hermione saw the way Ginny hesitated, wanting to hug her goodbye and she pretended she was busy with cleaning the minor mess she had made to avoid the contact. She had managed fine in the aftermath of having Malfoy rape her, even managing to kiss Ron while they'd been down in the Chamber of Secrets, but once the adrenaline of being on the run and fighting a war had begun to wear off, Hermione had discovered her baggage.

And she had a lot of it. Because of what he had done to her, Hermione had a hard time being in the same room with men, which became an issue given the fact that her two best friends were male. Since she couldn't even handle being alone with a man, the idea of doing anything else with one terrified her. Hermione hadn't let anyone but her kids touch her anywhere on her body that wasn't her arms since the war had ended and she knew it was a problem.

"I'll see you tonight then" Hermione said softly to her friend. Ginny frowned at her and then at Malfoy but she bid them both goodbye nonetheless and exited the shop. Hermione kept cleaning, not looking up as the doorbell tinkled at Ginny's exit, keeping a wide berth around Malfoy, who was still leaning against her counter, one ankle curled around the other with the red teacup dwarfed in his strong hands. Hermione tried not to shudder as she remembered the way he'd used them to drag her clothes off her.

He stayed silent for several minutes while Hermione grew more and more uncomfortable until she wanted to scream at him to get out because she felt edgy and nervous and afraid around him. She had no idea what to tell Ginny but she needed to think of something.

"What did you put in this?" He asked her in a low, soothing sort of voice, distracting her from the words she'd been about to spout to ask him to leave.

"Oh, erm… Chamomile for calming the nerves and relieving tension, Fennel for digestion, Scullcap for muscle tension, Ginger for absorption and flavour, Horehound for pain and stimulation of the nervous system, and Peppermint for refreshment and flavour. I used different herbs in the one I gave you earlier, some rare wizarding herbs that control mood swings and sooth anger but if I use those on muggles they're likely to catch on that it's something in the tea." Hermione explained.

"It's good" he replied with a very small smirk on his face and Hermione felt her whole body jolt in surprise to realise that he had just used her know-it-all ways and love of knowledge to completely distract her from how tense and edgy she'd been feeling.

Hermione stared at him, wondering how he had known she'd been about to scream and burst into tears, and how he had known that asking her a question that made her call on her wealth of knowledge would distract her from it.

Hermione just nodded at him, returning to the middle kitchen in the wizard half of the store and beginning to prepare a large cheese and bacon omelette to feed the four children upstairs and herself.

"What time are you opening the other side of the store?" Draco asked her in that same soothing voice while she whisked all of the ingredients for the omelette together in a large bowl.

"At two I'll open it, so I can get them fed" Hermione said nodding at the thumping noises that could be heard upstairs.

"Do you mind if I hang around?" Draco asked her and this time Hermione had to bite her lip wondering if he could see how edgy she was to be alone with him. It was ten times worse with him to any other man since it was him who had raped her in the first place.

"Erm…" Hermione began slowly.

"What are you going to tell them Hermione?" He cut her off before she could ask him to leave.

"I don't know" she sighed, pouring the omelette mix into a large frypan on the stove. "Since it happened in the middle of a bloody war it's not like I can tell them we randomly hooked up. As it was I was on the run from the Death Eaters and you were…. Well…."

"One of the Death Eaters" He supplied, looking into her eyes and Hermione could see his own self-loathing glowing bright just as much as she could hear it in the dejected and disgusted tone of his voice.

"Just tell them Hermione. They'll rage and try to kill me, but it's what I deserve" he sighed and Hermione watched him bury his face in his hands. A part of her wanted to tell her friends the truth. The Gryffindor part that demanded she act nobly and not lie to her friends. But she just couldn't.

"I can't…" Hermione whispered brokenly, burying her face in her hands.

Draco lifted his head when he heard the soft sob that tore from her throat and felt his heart constrict painfully, the knife of guilt buried within him twisting nastily. As he looked at her he could see the way her slim figure was wracked with sobs and he felt sick to his stomach with himself for what he had done to her.

"You should Hermione. You need to tell them." He urged her, thinking that maybe if she could talk to them, could cry it out on their shoulders, she might be able to move past it. He'd seen the way the idea of having Ginny ask her how she'd gotten pregnant had made her so edgy he'd thought she was going to break things. She needed to just admit to them that he was a bastard and had raped her.

"I can't" she sobbed again.

"Why not?" he asked, trying to understand why she'd kept it a secret in the first place.

He felt like she'd kicked him in the stomach and bollocks simultaneously when she lifted her terrified face out of her hands. Her eyelashes and cheeks were wet with tears, her face pink. The utter terror on her face cut at his soul.

"You're ashamed" he breathed suddenly, feeling like it would've hurt him less to have her Crucio him for the rest of time. She buried her face again, sobbing harder and Draco felt anger scald through his veins to know that he had done this to her, and yet she felt ashamed over it.

He knew from the way she'd looked at him that it wasn't because he'd gotten her pregnant or because it was him that was the father of her kids. It didn't even have anything to do with the fact that to have them she'd had to have sex with a Death Eater. Draco felt like killing himself to know that she was ashamed of herself.

"Granger listen to me right now" Draco growled, his anger burning in his gut "You should not be ashamed that I did that to you. Don't you dare stand there and cry thinking that it was your fault or that you could've stopped it! You bloody well couldn't have."

She looked up at him, her puffy wet eyes terrified to have him snapping at her and Draco drew his wand quickly, pulling up wards around them to keep anyone on the streets and her kids upstairs from seeing or hearing them. He could see the torment in her eyes and knew he'd been right. She blamed herself for the fact that he'd raped her.

"If I'd been smarter we'd never have been caught" Hermione's voice cracked "I should've been stronger. I'm supposed to be clever and I just let them take our wands and take us to that awful place."

Draco felt the knife twisting faster and more viciously now inside his soul.

"I just stood there and let her torture me" she whispered past the lump in her throat "I couldn't do wandless magic. I tried…. I tried to kill her and it didn't work, nothing happened at all." Draco hated himself for the way she trembled as though she was reliving the pain she'd suffered.

"You stopped her" Hermione breathed and Draco shook his head slowly. Her eyes were unfocused and terrified, and he hated that she was watching it in her mind all over again.

"I thought you were going to help me" she murmured. "Even when you said you'd rape the information out of me, I thought you were being clever, that you'd take me away from them and somehow get me out of there…. But you didn't. I fought against you, and you hit me."

Draco hated the way her hand lifted, her fingers caressing the shining white scar on her lip where he'd split it when he'd tried to control her violent writhing and fighting.

"I just let you do it…." She whispered brokenly, eyes unfocused "How can I tell them that's what happened? They'll…."

"What the hell do you mean you just let it happen?" Draco demanded, advancing towards her slowly "You nearly got away a whole bunch of times. It's not like you just laid down and let me…" Draco trailed off before he reached behind himself for a second. She looked terrified when he pulled his shirt off over his head and turned sideways so she could see the mess of scars on his back.

"Does this look like the work of someone who just 'let me' rape her?" Draco demanded and he watched the way her eyes widened and she took in the massive gouged scars all over his otherwise unmarred back. Every angry red scar there was from her fingernails where she'd gouged at his skin, trying to fight him off her, trying to escape, to do anything to save herself from what he'd done to her.

He'd never showed them to anyone before. He'd been willing to let himself bleed out from them after he'd seen that tear trickle down her cheek as he'd taken her innocence away forever. They were all incredibly deep. She had managed to claw shallow gouges into the marble floor of the Drawing Room in the Manor; the flesh of his back hadn't stood a chance against her claws.

"You did that Hermione. You didn't just lay there and do nothing. You didn't just let me bloody well rape you. You did everything you could to fight me off and keep me from doing it. There was nothing more you could've done and given how underfed and weak you were from being on the run and being tortured you put up a hell of a fight. You did everything you could." He told her firmly, trying to make her understand that it was his fault.

He knew why she thought it was her fault but he didn't know how to explain to her that it wasn't. How could the man who'd raped you ever explain that it wasn't your fault your body had reacted to it?

Draco had known then that just the same way his body had reacted to having sex with her, hers had reacted to having sex with him. He'd known that just as his body had expressed it's pleasure at the stimulation, resulting in their two children, hers had expressed pleasure as well. But he didn't know how to tell her that it wasn't her fault she'd gotten off on it. He'd tried to be as gentle as he could when he ripped her innocence away, and as a result had confused the hell out of the both of them.

For his entire time in Azkaban, Draco had relived his nightmares of what he had done to her and often thought of how much of a monster it made him that he'd actually gotten off on raping her. He'd blamed himself and hated himself for it, wondering what kind of evil, twisted sadistic bastard he must be in his soul that he could've climaxed from it and he'd been tortured with the knowledge that she'd climaxed as well.

"It wasn't enough" she whispered, another tear trickling from her eyes.

It was so much like the one she had cried when he'd raped her that Draco felt his heart squeeze painfully and before he could think better of it he'd dropped his shirt back into place and stepped forwards, wrapping her in a tight hug, trying to do now what he'd wanted to do then. He didn't even think about the fact that as the bloke who raped her, the last thing she would ever want would be for him to hug her.

But he realised it pretty quickly when she went rigid in his arms before she began to thrash, writhing and shrieking. Draco let go of her fast, and watched the way she backpedalled from him so quickly that her back slammed into her kitchen counter, winding herself even as she slipped, still trying to escape the contact.

She slammed onto the floor hard and coughed from the way she'd winded herself. Draco's anguish washed over him like a Cruciatus curse, torturing him body and soul as he saw the utter terror, dread and pain on the face and in the eyes of the mother of his children. As he looked at her miserably, hating himself for what he'd done to her, Draco realised that Hermione Granger was just as psychologically fucked up as him.

So much so that in spite of the way she seemed unable to draw breath from the way she had knocked the wind out of herself, she never took those terrified chocolate eyes off him, clearly afraid that he was going to try and touch her again. Draco suddenly understood the awkward little shuffle that Weasley had given as she'd been about to leave, realising that Hermione Granger was so fucked up emotionally from what he had done to her that she couldn't even hug her best girlfriend goodbye.

Staring down at her, his whole body aching with pain, regret and shame over what he had done and how scared she was of him, Draco tried to think of anything he could do to help her. After all, in a regular situation when a lady fell over the logical thing to do was to help her to her feet and make sure she were alright, but how could he do that when Hermione was so terrified to have him or anyone else touch her that she screamed in fear to fight free of the comforting hug he'd tried to give her?

Trying to think of anything that he could do, Draco slowly let himself sink down on her kitchen floor across from her. Her wide eyes watched his movement with fear that he might try to come closer to her.

"I'm sorry" he whispered dejectedly, staring into her eyes and trying to convey with words and a look that he hadn't meant to startle her and most certainly hadn't meant any harm. Her face was red and terrified, streaked with tears as she tried to catch her breath and Draco made sure to speak softly and slowly, soothingly, trying to calm her down.

"I didn't mean to startle you Hermione" he whispered "I didn't even think… I just…. You looked like you needed a hug…"

After that they both sat there in silence while Draco waited for Hermione to calm down. It took a long time, especially since his very presence was unsettling her, but Draco knew that if he were to leave now she'd never let him back in and never let him near their kids.

"I'm sorry" he heard her whisper very softly after what felt like hours. Draco looked at her, seeing the way she still looked wary and still pressed against the bench as though she wanted to melt into it and be free of his gaze.

"I…. I don't like to be touched" she said after clearing her throat.

"I understand" Draco whispered back soothingly "I shouldn't have… I'm sorry for upsetting you."

Draco watched and waited until she was ready to get to her feet, and only after she had did he very slowly retake his own. She was edgy and jumpy and Draco tried to think about what he knew of herb-lore himself. Surely if she could drug him and everyone else into feeling better, he would be able to find something to calm her nerves and help her.

"Maybe you should wait until tomorrow to open your store to the muggles, Hermione" Draco suggested very softly, making sure that he walked back around the bench and was sitting on a stool again, putting some distance between them, hoping it would help her.

"But my sign says it's opening today" she protested and Draco watched the way she kept one eye trained on him even as she flipped the omelette she was cooking, clearly still expecting him to try and grab her. Draco felt that ever-increasingly-familiar knife of guilt twist in his gut as his mutinous thoughts pointed out that she was suspicious, expecting him to rape her again.

"And you aren't in any state to be helping other people feel better when you're scared out of your mind." Draco told her gently, trying to reason with the stubborn girl in a way that wouldn't offend or upset her even more.

"I'm fine" she insisted curtly in a tone that told him she was anything but fine.

"Hermione?" Draco began softly, waiting and watching the way her head snapped up, that fear still in her eyes. "You have four kids upstairs to watch, a sick house-elf and a swathe of friends who are going to come barging into your life demanding answers as to why you kept the fact that you were a mother from them for five years; the mother of kids born to me, the person your friends and you have hated since our first year at Hogwarts."

"But I…." She began but Draco spoke over the top of her.

"More importantly, you have to do something about this. You need to tell someone about what I did to you and you need to find out about getting some kind of help from someone. You're terrified to be in the same room as me, and you are so damaged by what I did to you that you have been running from it for five years. Your friends deserve to know that I'm the father of the twins, and you deserve the love and care they will lavish upon you as they help you overcome the fact that I ... raped you. You have to tell them the truth."

"I can't" she whispered again and Draco knew she was still too ashamed.

"Well if you can't tell them, then you need to tell someone else. Maybe you need to go to St. Mungo's and see a psychiatrist. You need to tell someone." Draco insisted firmly.

"I did tell someone" She whispered back, turning slowly to look at him very pointedly. Draco frowned for a minute before he realised that she meant she'd told him. Not that she'd had to.

"Someone else Granger" Draco said, exasperated now. "You need to tell someone who can help you deal with it. I can't help you. You're terrified of being in the same room as me."

Hermione Granger just kept on staring at him and Draco sighed when he saw the stubborn set of her jaw. She wasn't going to tell anyone. She was too ashamed of it.

"Hermione… why don't you want anyone to know?" Draco asked her finally after watching her for several minutes in silence while she expertly flipped the omelette, throwing it up in the air inside the pan and catching it again, even while keeping one eye on him.

"I mean, you have nothing to be ashamed of over it, because I promise you there was nothing you could've done to stop it. It was in no way your fault, and you did everything you could to try and stop me…."

"But I…" she began again before biting her lip, torment in her eyes and Draco knew from the way she blushed that she was thinking about the way she was ashamed because even though he'd done it against her will, her body had reacted to him and to what he'd been doing to her. He knew that she was tormented over the fact that even though he'd been raping her, she'd enjoyed it and Draco knew all about how that fact had fucked with his head while he was wallowing in his own torment in Azkaban. He knew all about the way it made him question everything he'd ever known about himself and about her that he had not only enjoyed having sex with her within the act – though he was still horrified with himself for doing it against her will – but that she had been unable to keep her body from responding to his, even as she fought against him and cried.

He knew all about the torment, but he could offer her no comfort on it. He was still tormented by it just the same way she was and had nothing he could offer to her that would make her feel better about her body enjoying being raped by his.

"Why are you afraid to have people find out?" he asked her instead "I don't imagine you have any qualms about seeing me hexed into oblivion by your friends, or shipped off the Azkaban to receive the Dementor's Kiss. It's not as though you ever particularly liked me, and after what I did you have even less cause to…. So why have you been working so hard to keep everyone from finding out the truth?"

He knew it was a dangerous question, and that it flirted with the topic of the enjoyment they'd both gotten from what had happened between them, but he had to know why she was fighting so hard to hide the rape from everyone.

Hermione bit her lip as she glanced back at the omelette in the pan that she had finished cooking even as she picked up a knife to cut it into portions. She'd been desperately hiding the fact that he had raped her from the whole world for five years and it was about more than just the fact that she had had sex with Draco Malfoy – the boy who had tormented her and ridiculed her all through Hogwarts.

It was even about more than the fact that she was so mortified that she had been able to do nothing in that situation to keep him from doing it, just like she'd been unable to keep them all from being captured and herself from being tortured by Bellatrix LeStrange. It was a failure on her part, one that ate at her. Within the 'Golden Trio' - as she, Harry and Ron had been dubbed – she was the brains of the operation. Ron was a strategist and Harry was courageous and true, but she was the book-smart clever witch who made sure they managed to muddle through every situation without getting caught and without getting hurt.

And she had failed. One of the most important times in her life and the girl who had aced every test had failed.

That fact ate away at her every single day. Even though they had escaped Malfoy Manor and survived the War; even though Voldemort and most of his followers were dead, Hermione could never let it go. Every time she caught a glimpse of the word carved into her arm by Bellatrix LeStrange, every time she looked at the two children she loved more than anything else in the world, Hermione remembered her failure.

But that wasn't the only reason she had been working so hard to keep the fact that Draco Malfoy had raped her from the world.

As she slid slices of omelette on six different plates, Hermione slowly glanced over at the man who had raped her, so different now from the cruel, scared boy he had been then.

"Malfoy… your parents loved each other, didn't they?" she asked him softly and Hermione saw the way the surprise at her question flitted across his pointed, somewhat handsome face.

"They're marriage was arranged" Draco replied softly "But yes. They loved each other more than almost anything."

"Almost anything?" Hermione questioned, her eyes searching his face. A somewhat bitter smile crossed his face.

"The only thing they loved more than each other was me" he told her.

Hermione nodded slowly and she could see the way Draco Malfoy was trying to draw the connection between the question he had asked her and the ones she was asking him. Hermione was still staring into his eyes as she carried a plate of omelette and some utensils across her kitchen, wary and alert, even as she slowly slid the plate of food in front of the man who had raped her, the man who was responsible for the fact that upstairs she had two beautiful, innocent, sweet, wonderful children.

She could see the way his familiar grey eyes jumped between both of her brown ones, trying to understand what was going on inside her mind.

"And how do you think it would destroy you, Draco, if you ever learned that the only reason you existed was because your father had raped your mother in the middle of a war?" Hermione asked him in a low, sad voice "How do you think those angels upstairs would feel if they were ever to learn that their father had raped their mother?"

Hermione saw Draco blanch, his pale skin turning a deathly shade of white as he realised the truth.

"How do you think they will feel about themselves, about me, and about you if they ever find out you raped me?" Hermione whispered.


	6. Chapter 6

_**What You've Given Me**_

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Draco sat and ate in silence, trying to focus on the delicious flavours of the omelette she'd made for him. He was alone, still sitting at the bench in her little shop. Hermione had taken the rest of the food upstairs to the kids, and hadn't returned. He noted bitterly that she'd taken her plate of food with her too and so was probably upstairs in her flat, eating with her kids so that she wouldn't have to keep staring at him.

Draco didn't know what to do. He'd asked if he could spend the day with her and she hadn't voiced an objection, though he could tell she was less than pleased about it. Part of him thought he should just finish the fantastic meal she'd given him and go. It was obvious to him that she was impossibly uncomfortable around him, as was to be expected, and he'd made it worse when he'd tried comforting her.

He was trying very hard not to think about the fact that Hermione was right as usual. If anyone beside the two of them every found out that he'd raped her, it would undoubtedly get back to their kids someday and he could just imagine the hatred they would feel for him when that happened. He was now utterly terrified of such a prospect. If he'd ever learned something like that about his parents he'd have hexed his father into oblivion.

And yet he knew that if she continued to keep it a secret, she was never going to get over it. She couldn't even be alone in the same room as him and clearly had all kinds of psychological issues if she couldn't even hug her friends. In all honesty, Draco didn't know what to do. He didn't want to risk having Pippa and Ely find out that he'd raped Hermione and they were the result because he didn't want his children to hate him; but in order for Hermione to trust him and move past what he'd done to her, she needed to stop being ashamed over it and to stop blaming herself and keeping so many secrets.

She would never trust him while she carried around all that baggage, but he suspected she would never tell anyone and relieve some of the baggage because she was still conflicted over the fact that her body had responded to his and didn't know how to deal with it or ever want to admit to it. As he sat there eating the delicious omelette she'd cooked, Draco felt the beginnings of a plan forming in his mind.

She had pointedly looked at him when she said she'd told someone. And if she was too stubborn and scared to ever tell anyone else, then Draco would just have to do. He'd said he couldn't help her because even being in the same room as him made her uncomfortable, but what if he could?

What if he could help her to get past it? To do so he would need to spend a lot of time with her so she could begin to trust him – which would inadvertently allow him to see his kids on a regular basis – and he would have to be honest and open with her. But he was the one who had so damaged her. Surely it was logical that with enough time and care and trust, he could undo the psychological damage he'd inflicted on her. Obviously he couldn't simply take back the fact that he'd stripped her of her innocence and hurt her, but he could help her to overcome the fear she had of being alone in a room with him, and no doubt with all men. He could help her to realise that it wasn't her fault her body had reacted to his, just the way his had to hers.

There was even a possibility that having shown her the scars she'd left on his back when she'd tried to fight him off had helped her to realise that she hadn't simply laid there and let him do that to her. That she had been strong and had fought back with every ounce of strength she'd still possessed whilst so emaciated and weak from the hunger, exhaustion and torture she'd been suffering.

Yes, Draco decided, he would hang around and do whatever he could to try and help her move past this whole issue, getting to know his children in the process and would hopefully win her trust to make sure he would be allowed to be in their lives. He would like to actually have them know he was their father too, but he suspected that would have to wait until she trusted him enough not to be some kind of negative influence on them.

As he ate the last of his omelette, still sipping the tea she'd given him, which seemed to be making him feel better than he had in years – making him wonder just what she was drugging him with in order to so effectively improve his mood, his sense of self-loathing and his general outlook on life – Draco mused idly about what his mother would say if she were still alive to learn she'd had grandchildren. Illegitimate grandchildren.

She would be appalled, Draco knew, just as she had been when he'd done what he did to Granger in the first place. If she knew she had grandchildren sired by him out of wedlock his mother would roll over in her grave. Draco could practically hear her voice in his head insisting that he ought to immediately take responsibility for his children and their mother by doing the proper thing and asking her to marry him.

Even though Hermione Granger was their mother, Draco could hear Narcissa's voice in his mind. She'd always held very traditionalist ideals regarding such thing and the idea of her son fathering children out of wedlock would embarrass and appal her. She would tell him to do the proper thing and provide for them.

The realisation made him uncomfortable when he realised that if he tried Granger would probably spit in his face at the very idea of having her rapist ask her to marry him. Clenching his fist tightly around his mug, Draco dug the other into his pocket, pulling out the small bag of galleons he kept on him at all times and opening the draw-string. There wasn't nearly enough in there, but until he could stop off at Gringotts it would have to do.

He might not be able to convince her to marry him for many, many years, if ever, but he would certainly do his best to try. It was the right thing to do. And until then he would make sure that Hermione, Pippa and Ely wanted for nothing. If she tried to argue or refused to take his money, he would simply speak to the goblins at Gringotts and have them make regular transfers of money from his vault to hers until she stopped being so proud and stubborn and hard-headed.

Deciding that if he was going to try and convince her to trust him and tolerate him and someday marry him, Draco got to his feet, tapping his wand to his used dishes and utensils and levitating them over to the sink where they began to wash themselves under the hot soapy water. He also waved it to clean up any mess he found, tidying up the few things Granger had left unwashed after she closed up for her lunch break and putting things away. He walked around the shop straightening books people had pulled off the shelves, fixing stool and chairs that had been tucked in messily or left out haphazardly by the rush of customers she'd dealt with earlier.

Next he walked through the kitchen and into the muggle side of the shop, noticing that Ginny Potter had left her tea-cup on the table in her rush to leave. All the while he was aware of the fact that Hermione was no doubt upstairs waiting for him to grow bored and leave without having to be impolite enough to kick him out. Subconsciously he began planning up an intricate story that she might be able to use to lie to her friends and so avoid telling them he'd raped her. He had no doubt that Potter, Weasley and Ginny would all come bursting into the store demanding an explanation about how he'd gotten her pregnant, why she'd stayed away overseas so long, why she'd kept it a secret that he was the father of the twins, why she'd not told them five years ago that she'd even given birth.

It had irked him a little to learn she'd not even told her friends that she had kids until she returned to London and Draco found himself wondering just what she had been doing these past five years that they could possibly not have known.

He had vague details that she'd spent some time travelling, grieving the loss of loved ones in the war, followed by the grief at the loss of her parents. It sounded to him as though she might've had some kind of breakdown where she simply didn't care what happened to her, blowing about in the wind like a fallen leaf in an autumn breeze even after she'd realise she was pregnant. He felt a twinge of concern to wonder what she had put herself and their growing children through in that state and imagined she had probably been emotionally and psychologically devastated to realise that he'd knocked her up after what he had done to her.

And yet, she'd spent the following five years raising the twins somewhere in Tuscany. He knew that the children clearly spoke Italian as well as English, something that had been obvious when Ely had been startled earlier. It bothered him that he knew so little about them. All he knew was their names. He didn't even know their birthdate. What had they weighed when they'd been born? Had they expressed any magical ability yet? Did they have favourite activities they liked to do? Favourite books they liked to have read to them before bed each night?

What had Granger been doing for the past five years that she didn't even tell her closest friends that she'd had children?

As Draco waited for her to come back downstairs knowing she intended to open the muggle side of the store to customers for the afternoon, he tortured himself with imaginings and wonderings about his children, yearning to ask her questions about them and wanting to stomp upstairs and demand she tell him.

"You're still here" he heard her soft voice say with a sigh and Draco looked up from the book he was reading whilst still seated at the counter.

"Where else would I be?" he asked her, offering her a smile.

"Don't you have a business to run?" she asked, clearly referring to the Drunken Mermaid.

"I have a manager and dedicated staff to take care of it" he shrugged "When is the twin's birthday?"

"January seventeenth" she replied "Why are you still here?"

"We're supposed to be getting to know each other so that you'll trust me enough to tell the twins I'm their father and let me see them on a regular basis." He told her "And I had an idea about what you could tell your friends when they come in here demanding answers since you're being too stubborn to tell them the truth."

"Which is?" she demanded, looking annoyed by the easy way he spoke to her as though they were already friends rather than old enemies with a world's worth of baggage between them.

"They're going to realise by counting back from their birthday by nine months the approximate time they were conceived" Draco told her "But Ginny mentioned that you didn't even tell them until you returned to London that you'd had kids. I'm guessing that means you've not told them much about your pregnancy or about all that much of anything you've been doing these past five years…. So I was thinking that rather than the truth – which you're refusing to share – you could tell them that just before leaving the country to travel to Australia, you could say that whilst stressed and overwrought with grief you ran into me somewhere whilst drinking. Maybe tell them something along the lines of feeling the drunken urge to thank me for lying about who Potter was that day… and that one thing led to another and we had a one night stand."

Draco eyed her, hoping she wouldn't be offended by the idea since it implied that she was drowning her problems with alcohol and had gotten drunk enough to shag her enemy.

"I was thinking something along the same lines" she admitted with a sigh, reaching for clean mugs and more herbs to make even more tea. As he watched her Draco suspected it was a habit she'd picked up and that in order to channel her no doubt tumultuous thoughts and emotions she busied herself with the art of creating different combinations of teas and other things until she could use those teas to drug herself calm again.

In a way it was much like his practice of diving into his cups every evening and drinking until he passed out and so could forget his past for a while and he wondered if she was even aware of the fact that she'd been self-medicating herself and anyone around her every time she did so.

"You're not offended by the suggestion?" he queried, not wanting to upset her any more than he already had.

"My friends have seen the way I've taken to self-medicating" she told him without looking up from whatever combination of herbs she was measuring out "They won't be surprised to hear that I began it by getting drunk before learning an alternative way to do so when I realised I was pregnant."

"Do you think they'll believe that you would've felt the need to speak to me whilst intoxicated, resulting in us having a one night stand?"

"They'll believe whatever I tell them" she replied, pouring boiling water in the teapot she'd just filled with herbs and allowing them to steep for several long minutes.

"Are you sure? Because if they doubt the story they'll prod at you and upset you until you tell them the truth."

"I'm sure. They know better these days than to hassle me with questions I don't want to answer. Something they learned when I refused to tell them you were the twin's father." She assured him, turning eventually to look at him.

She appeared to have calmed down considerably after her earlier nervousness and turmoil, and Draco suspected based on the glassiness of her eyes that she'd managed that with some assistance of a chemical aid. It concerned him mildly that she used drugs, prescription or otherwise, in order to cope with getting through the day and he found himself worrying about the effect such a thing might have on their children. They already had an alcoholic father, they didn't need a drug abusing mother too.

"What did you take?" he asked bluntly, deciding that from here on out his relationship with Hermione Granger would be one of openness and blunt honesty.

"Excuse me?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise at his sudden change of tone and topic.

"What did you take?" he repeated "You're not eyeing me suspiciously and nervously anymore and your eyes are glassy like you've taken some kind of drug or medication to control your mood and keep you from freaking out. What did you take?"

She stared at him for a moment in silence, clearly disturbed by the fact that he had even noticed.

"I have prescription medicine that I take when I start to lose it" she told him quietly, glancing at the door to the stairs to make sure the kids wouldn't hear her "They vary, because I need an anti-depressant most days, but other times also need anxiety medication or anti-psychotics when things get really bad."

"Is that normal?" Draco asked, concerned now.

"Not really. I haven't needed the anxiety medication of the anti-psychotics in a while" she shrugged almost nonchalantly and Draco could tell that the medications were making her mildly blasé.

"Why do you need them?" he asked gently, wondering what would drive her to need anti-psychotics. Anti-depressants and anxiety medication made sense to him. After he'd been released from Azkaban he'd been given both of those medications too, though he no longer needed to anxiety medication.

"You raped me" she replied with a shrug, making Draco flinch. Even as she said it she carried a fresh mug of tea over and placed it in front of him, this one a shade of pink with purple swirls in it.

"Which would call for the use of anti-depressants and anxiety medication. What are the anti-psychotics for?" Draco asked, wondering if she would tell him. Her current medicated state suggested she might, even though regularly she would likely tell him to mind his own business.

"I only need the anti-depressants these days" she told him "At least, that's what the muggle doctor I saw in Tuscany told me. The anxiety medication is because I get edgy, nervous and uncomfortable around men, making me afraid they'll try to rape me."

He suspected she wasn't trying to make him feel even guiltier than he already did, but the knife of it stabbed and twisted in his gut just the same as she answered him.

"I use those whenever I have to deal with large crowds or be in crowded areas, like being here today. They also keep me from curling up in a ball and screaming if Harry or Ron or anyone else who is male is alone with me for more than a moment or two." She said "The anti-psychotics are for my other problem."

"Other problem?" Draco prodded, curious and concerned and wracked with guilt and shame.

"I was tortured for more than an hour" Hermione told him drily "And then carried off and raped. I don't deal well with being touched by anyone but my kids. It sets off the memories and I relive them over and over again until I end up tearing my hair out and screaming hysterically as I relive the feel of Bellatrix crucioing me, while voices in my head tell me about how I failed, how it was my fault, how I deserved it. And then there's all the damage you did."

She didn't say anything else to elaborate of the damage he'd done, but since she'd already discussed the fact that she didn't like to be touched or alone with men, he didn't need her to spell out what she meant, because he knew she was referring to the damage he'd done to her psychologically.

He could just imagine that she had voices in head telling her she'd failed and that it was her fault and that she was sick and twisted because when he'd raped her, she'd climaxed just like he had.

"That wasn't your fault Hermione" he told her quietly, holding her gaze and concerned by how glassy-eyed she was.

"You don't even know what damage I'm talking about" she retorted dismissively.

"You're talking about the fact that you've been carrying around the secret guilt and conflicted emotions that plague you to know that when I did that to you, you climaxed" he corrected her, wincing when she dropped the mug she'd just lifted to her lips.

Draco waved his wand and levitated it back onto the bench before it could hit the ground and shatter. Hermione stared at him with wide, terrified eyes and Draco realised it was probably all a little too much for her to have to deal with him like this before bringing that particular issue up.

"You…. You…" she stammered.

"I know all about it Granger. I've tortured myself over it for years. You weren't the only one who got off on it. If you were we wouldn't have children." Draco told her seriously, keeping his voice low and soft, his expression open and empathetic "And you need to know that it wasn't your fault. It was mine. I was trying to make it as painless as possible for you, and in doing so ended up confusing the hell out of both of us."

"But I …." She began, staring at him and looking horrified.

"I didn't rape you Hermione. I did, because it was against your will, but the word rape conjures up images pain and brutality and evil. I think the more accurate expression would be that I made love to you against your will, resulting in your body and mine being tricked into enjoying the feeling. Even if neither of us wanted to actually be having sex." Draco told her gently, not wanting to upset her anymore by suggesting that he hadn't raped her when he had technically.

"You know….." she breathed, still looking horrified and terrified and increasingly embarrassed by the direction their conversation had taken.

"I know" he confirmed with a slight nod. "And I know how it fucks with your head. I spent a year in Azkaban reliving that day, wondering what sort of sick, twisted bastard I must be that I actually got off on doing that to you when I didn't want to be shagging you and you certainly didn't want me to be. So I don't know how much it will help, but you should know none of what happened that day was your fault Hermione. It was the Snatchers who grabbed you and dragged you to the Manor; it was Aunt Bella for being so insane and torturing you that way; it was mine for doing that to you against your will and for foolishly trying to help you and keep from hurting you as much as I could. In retrospect, if I'd been brutal and rough and mean, you might still have issues with trusting people and with being touched, but you wouldn't be carrying around that self-doubt and self-loathing because your body reacted to mine the way it's supposed to when two people have sex."

She stared at him with her mouth opening and closing as though she wanted to say something but had no idea what to say or how to say it. Draco stared back at her, wondering if either of them would ever get over it, and kind of hoping they would. He wanted to take that haunted look from her eyes.

"I'm so sorry" he whispered to her, unable to think of anything to say in the tense and painful silence that followed his statements while she kept staring at him like that, clearly in shock to have had everything she no doubt tried to bury and keep hidden even from herself dragged out into the light like this and examined in a way she'd probably never considered before.

"You never wanted to…. Did you?" she breathed finally and Draco was surprised to hear her ask such a thing, everything considered.

"No Hermione, I never wanted to do that to you. I didn't want to take away whatever hope you were still clinging to you. I didn't want to hurt you and force you…. I just didn't want you to suffer at the hands of my aunt or Greyback anymore. I didn't want to watch you scream in agony anymore. And I didn't want you to die." Draco whispered to her sadly.

Tears trickled down her face at his admission and Draco felt his gut twist painfully.

"I hate watching you cry and feeling helpless to do anything to make you stop" he told her even as she buried her face in her hands, fingers brushing at the tears on her cheeks.

She cried harder at that, and in spite of how much he wanted to go around the counter and hold her until she stopped sobbing, he stayed put on his stool this time. As much as hugging her might eventually help her, it would also make her crazy and possibly set off some kind of psychotic episode even worse than the one he'd triggered the last time he'd tried to comfort her.

"Please don't cry Hermione." Draco found himself begging "Please stop."

She did seem to be trying to get it under control, and she hiccupped a little when she tried holding her breath to keep from sobbing anymore.

After what felt like a lifetime, she slowly lifted her face from her hands once more, revealing that her eyes were red and puffy from crying and her nose red from wiping at it as she sobbed. Draco felt his heart constrict in his chest painfully as he tried to think of some way to help her.

Doing the only thing he could think of that didn't call for him touching her and upsetting her further, Draco pulled his clean handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it to the young woman before him in silence. At first she stared at him as though she didn't believe her eyes, and then she began to look wary as though she wanted to reach out and take it but was too afraid that it was a plot so he might touch her.

Then she made a funny little sound that was some combination of a giggle, a sob and a hiccup all in one.

When she reached out timidly, almost shyly, Draco was reminded of the way a skittish animal reaches out, ready to bolt at any second should he do anything that suggest he might try to hurt her or touch her. Draco held perfectly still, the handkerchief resting flat on his upturned palm the way he might offer a sugar-cube to a horse, holding his breath to keep from startling her or even from moving simply to breathe.

She was careful not to touch his skin as she picked up the handkerchief gingerly, darting back from him quickly with it in her grip as soon as she had it. Draco found himself smiling gently at her as she slowly dabbed the cloth to her wet eyes, and he realised that he felt a little sense of victory to know she'd trusted him just enough to accept the handkerchief from him, taking what little comfort he could actually provide her without upsetting her any worse.

"Thank you" she whispered finally, the cloth still in her grip and dabbing at her cheeks, her eyes looking anywhere but at him.

"I'm sorry I can't do more to help" he said just as softly, his own eyes riveted on her fragile form. "And for everything I've done to you."

She nodded slowly, and her hands trembled a little less. Draco didn't know how long they stayed there in the kitchen in silence after that; him watching her tentatively; her looking at her feet and the benches and anywhere else but at him.

He felt something inside himself flop strangely when she finally lifted those cinnamon eyes to meet his own stormy gaze, and whispered;

"You've changed, Draco Malfoy."

* * *

**A/N: Hey Cherubs, I hope you liked it. Pretty please leave a review and tell me what you think. I know some people are having trouble stomaching what has been referred to 'another forgive a rapist' story, and that some people think this is insensitive/degrading to victims of rape. I assure you that it's not meant to and that though I have no true personal experience with the act, I am very empathetic to those who have. Let me know your thoughts. xx-Kitten. **


End file.
